The manically melodic melody of the songbird is a rare presence in the UK nowadays, but it's different at this rural location. Four years ago, a single bird could be noticed at this secluded spot in rural Surrey; recently, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them calling all night, from five different territories,” notes a lead scientist, chief environmental expert for the Youngwilders. A group of participants were camping out at the property, but the birds were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says Layla Mapemba. “We were all worn out the next day, but it was so incredible.” An specialist from the local conservation group came to help them net and ring one of the songbirds the next morning, Cookson remembers: “He’d never held a songbird in his care before. He was emotional.”
Rewilding Accelerates at This Location
Nature recovery is by definition a slow process, but here at Maple Farm, after merely four years, the results are already apparent, and audible. The property previously served as a haven for horses. Today it’s a showpiece for the youth-led mission: to hasten habitat revival, in one of the ecologically impoverished nations in the planet, and to link the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often excluded from, and a environmental emergency they are often powerless to halt. Climate change continues, tree clearing eliminates ecosystems, and one more Cop summit comes to a disappointing end in the host country – so who could blame youth for wanting to take matters into their own hands?
Our initiative was founded on the belief that there were individuals prepared to allow a bunch of young idiots on to their land
“The youth is the most knowledgeable ecologically that there’s previously,” says the Youngwilders’ founder, Jack Durant. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the issues, and have contributed the least to their origin, and, then, are also going to suffer the worst as a result.”
Transformation of the Site
Now, the organisation is taking root across the United Kingdom – and Maple Farm planted the seed, in every sense. “It’s the initial project, and the place we created our network,” says another co-director, as she gives a overview of the 30-acre property. “This was previously six different fields,” she comments, as we stroll through tall vegetation filled with low scrub, surrounded by established trees. “The primary noticeable change is that we’ve eliminated all the enclosures, a significant length of it, to give the sense like one landscape.” In the summer, they used special clothing and cleared masses of harmful weeds, an non-native plant that can irritate the body. “We’ve introduced numerous of hedgerows,” notes the director. “But the main thing is we’ve just let it breathe for a little bit. We’ve eliminated a large part of grazing pressure and seen what’s come up.”
Low scrub and shrub lines are a ideal songbird habitat, she says, however today they’re trimming some of the wild growth to create a increased variety of ecosystems and to connect separate areas of the property. Fresh plantings will take a while to grow, but young trees from the adjacent woodland are already establishing themselves in the fields; the team have been placing barriers to protect them from animals.
Wildlife Reappears in Droves
There's more than the songbirds – wildlife is coming back in abundance. Lately they’ve spotted grass snakes, slowworms, nocturnal mammals and invertebrates, explains Noah Bennett, as he lifts up one of their survey equipment (similar to a doormat over a small hollow in the ground). “You discover snakes and animals sheltering under there, but it’s probably a slightly cold for them now.” Wild beehives, constructed from carved sections of tree trunk and humming with wild bees, are strapped to some of the trees. The lack of livestock has provided small creatures opportunity to thrive in the long grass. When they came to this time, comments Bennett, “I’d not once observed so numerous lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were saying, ‘What is happening?’”
Beginnings of the Project
The original founders – Bennett, Jack, Molly and additional members – came together as students, pursuing or expressing an passion in environmental science. In that year, the climate experts was predicting that the acceptable threshold of one and a half degrees of warming was appearing unachievable, a prominent figure was guiding the youth protests for environmental action, and advocate Clover Hogan was talking about youth suffering from “environmental stress”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s publication, about nature recovery, on how the authors transformed the a nearby property from a unsuccessful agricultural business into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were deeply influenced by the case study, but what was the role for youth?” questions Easton. “So we made a platform and contacted loads of wildlife trusts and were saying, ‘Do you sometimes get your landowners wishing to make changes and you lack capacity?’”
Jack adds the story: “Our entire initiative was fundamentally based on the notion that there were landowners who were prepared to allow a group of young amateurs on to their property freely, to decide on fairly massive decisions that would affect land value
