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The manically melodic melody of the nightingale is a rare occurrence in England these days, but not at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a solitary bird could be detected at this remote location in rural Surrey; recently, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them calling all night, from multiple areas,” explains a lead scientist, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of participants were staying overnight at the property, yet the nightingales were so loud, “we couldn’t sleep all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so incredible.” An professional from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the songbirds the next morning, she states: “He’d never handled a nightingale in his hands before. He was teary.”

Rewilding Accelerates at the Surrey Site

Nature recovery is by definition a gradual endeavor, but here at this property, after merely several seasons, the changes are already evident, and audible. The land was once a sanctuary for equines. Today it’s a model for the youth-led goal: to hasten habitat revival, in one of the biodiversity-poor countries in the world, and to connect the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a environment they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often unable to prevent. Rising temperatures advances, tree clearing destroys natural habitats, and another Cop summit comes to a frustrating conclusion in the host country – so who could criticize young people for wishing to act independently?

Our project was premised on the belief that there were people ready to permit a group of youthful idiots on to their property

“The youth is the best educated environmentally that there’s historically,” explains the group's co-director, one organizer. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have added the minimal role to their creation, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a consequence.”

Change of the Landscape

Today, the group is expanding across the Britain – and the original site planted the seed, in multiple ways. “It’s our origin point, and the place we created our network,” explains Molly Easton, as she gives a tour of the expansive land. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she comments, as we move through tall vegetation featuring bushes, hemmed by mature woodland. “The main visible change is that we’ve taken out all the enclosures, a significant length of it, to give the sense like a single environment.” In the summer, they donned special clothing and removed significant quantities of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can irritate the skin. “We’ve established many of hedgerows,” explains the director. “But the main thing is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a brief period. We’ve reduced a large part of animal feeding and seen what’s come up.”

Low scrub and shrub lines are a ideal songbird environment, she comments, although today they’re trimming some of the wild growth to create a more variety of environments and to join separate areas of the land. Fresh plantings will take considerably longer to establish, but saplings from the adjacent woodland are already establishing themselves in the open areas; the crew have been setting up protectors to safeguard them from grazing deer.

Animals Comes Back in Large Numbers

There's more than the nightingales – fauna is returning in droves. This year they’ve spotted grass snakes, creatures, flyers and invertebrates, notes a team member, as he uncovers one of their reptile mats (like a doormat over a depression in the soil). “You discover reptiles and wildlife residing under there, but it’s probably a somewhat cold for them now.” Organic beehives, built using hollowed-out pieces of timber and humming with insects, are attached to some of the plants. The lack of animals has given small creatures opportunity to flourish in the overgrown areas. When they visited this time, comments the director, “I’d never seen so numerous insects. There were just swarms of them. We were like, ‘What is going on?’”

Beginnings of the Initiative

The original Youngwilders – Noah, Jack, Molly and additional members – united as learners, focusing on or expressing an interest in nature. In the recent past, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the safe limit of 1.5C of global heating was seeming unachievable, a prominent figure was leading the youth protests for climate movement, and activist a speaker was addressing youth experiencing “eco-worry”. It was also the period of the author's work, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband transformed the Knepp Estate from a unsuccessful dairy farm into a flourishing natural habitat. “We were highly motivated by the case study, but what was the role for youth?” says Easton. “So we made a online presence and rang up loads of wildlife trusts and were like, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wanting to make changes and you are short on capacity?’”

Jack continues the story: “Our complete organisation was basically premised on the belief that there were landowners who were ready to allow a bunch of young enthusiasts on to their land indiscriminately, to take major actions that would change land value