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The beautifully intricate melody of the songbird is a scarce sound in England these days, yet not at the Surrey site. Four years ago, a solitary nightingale could be detected at this remote location in the countryside of Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were hearing them calling all night, from several zones,” says a lead scientist, top biologist for the eco-activist organization. A group of participants were camping out at the property, however the nightingales were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” remarks an engagement lead. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them capture and tag one of the birds the next morning, she states: “He’d never held a nightingale in his possession before. He was teary.”

Rewilding Progresses at the Surrey Site

Nature recovery is by definition a gradual process, but at this site at this property, after only four years, the outcomes are already apparent, and audible. The property used to be a sanctuary for equines. Today it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ mission: to hasten ecological restoration, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the planet, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often ineffectual to prevent. Global heating advances, deforestation destroys natural habitats, and yet another climate conference comes to a unsatisfactory end in the host country – so who could blame youth for wanting to act independently?

The project was premised on the belief that there were people ready to allow a bunch of youthful enthusiasts on to their land

“The youth is the best educated ecologically that there’s historically,” explains the group's leader, Jack Durant. They are also “the highly invested in the challenges, and have contributed the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a consequence.”

Transformation of the Property

Now, the initiative is taking root across the UK – and the original site started it all, in all respects. “It’s our origin point, and the place we established our network,” notes another co-director, as she provides a walkthrough of the expansive property. “This used to be divided plots,” she states, as we stroll through long grass featuring shrubs, surrounded by established trees. “The main visual difference is that we’ve removed all the enclosures, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like a single area.” In the summer, they used hazmat suits and eradicated large amounts of harmful weeds, an invasive species that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve planted loads of bush lines,” notes Easton. “But the primary focus is we’ve just given it space for a brief period. We’ve reduced a large part of grazing pressure and seen what’s sprung up.”

Low scrub and natural fences are a ideal songbird home, she says, but now they’re managing some of the thorny plants to create a increased range of environments and to join different sections of the land. Young saplings will take a while to take root, but saplings from the surrounding trees are already establishing themselves in the meadows; the group have been setting up guards to shield them from animals.

Nature Reappears in Large Numbers

It’s not just the nightingales – fauna is coming back in droves. Lately they’ve spotted grass snakes, slowworms, bats and insects, explains a team member, as he lifts up one of their reptile mats (like a cover over a indentation in the earth). “You get creatures and animals hiding under there, but it’s possibly a bit cold for them now.” Organic homes, built using carved pieces of tree trunk and buzzing with wild bees, are fixed to some of the woodland. The absence of livestock has allowed small creatures room to prosper in the long grass. When they visited this time, says Bennett, “I’d not once seen so countless lepidoptera. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is going on?’”

Inception of the Project

The original Youngwilders – Noah, Jack, Molly and two others – united as youth, pursuing or expressing an concern in environmental science. In 2019, the climate experts was indicating that the safe limit of one and a half degrees of warming was seeming out of reach, the activist was spearheading the demonstrations for climate movement, and advocate another voice was talking about young people suffering from “eco-worry”. It was also the period of the author's book, Wilding, on how the authors revitalized the a Sussex location from a unsuccessful agricultural business into a successful ecosystem. “We were super-inspired by the example, but what was the function for youth?” says Molly. “So we developed a online presence and rang up many of conservation groups and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your landowners wishing to take action and you don’t have time?’”

Durant explains the narrative: “Our entire initiative was fundamentally based on the notion that there were landowners who were willing to permit a collection of youthful idiots on to their property freely, to decide on major actions that would impact land value