That beautifully intricate song of the songbird is a scarce presence in England these days, yet not at Maple Farm. Four years ago, a lone nightingale could be noticed at this remote place in the countryside of Surrey; recently, they were in multiple locations. “We were hearing them calling all night, from five different territories,” notes a lead scientist, lead ecologist for the Youngwilders. A group of volunteers were staying overnight at the location, yet the birds were so noisy, “we were unable to rest all night,” comments Layla Mapemba. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so amazing.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the birds the next morning, the ecologist remembers: “He’d never held a nightingale in his possession before. He was crying.”
Habitat Revival Accelerates at Maple Farm
Ecological restoration is by definition a gradual business, but in this place at the farm, after just several seasons, the changes are already apparent, and noticeable. The farm was once a haven for horses. Today it’s a showpiece for the youth-led goal: to accelerate habitat revival, in one of the biodiversity-poor regions in the planet, and to engage the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a climate crisis they are often ineffectual to stop. Rising temperatures advances, tree clearing eliminates ecosystems, and yet another Cop summit draws to a disappointing conclusion in abroad – so who could fault young people for wanting to act independently?
The project was based on the belief that there were individuals prepared to let a bunch of young idiots on to their property
“The newer cohort is the best educated ecologically that there’s previously,” explains the Youngwilders’ co-director, Jack Durant. They are also “the deeply concerned in the challenges, and have contributed the least to their causing, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the worst as a result.”
Change of the Site
Today, the group is taking root across the UK – and Maple Farm started it all, in multiple ways. “It’s where we started, and where we built our connections,” says another co-director, as she provides a overview of the 12-hectare site. “This used to be multiple separate areas,” she says, as we walk through tall vegetation dotted with low scrub, bordered by forest. “The key visible difference is that we’ve removed all the barriers, a significant length of it, to create the impression like one environment.” In the warmer months, they wore hazmat suits and eradicated large amounts of harmful weeds, an non-native plant that can irritate the body. “We’ve planted loads of bush lines,” explains Easton. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a short time. We’ve reduced a lot of animal feeding and observed what’s come up.”
Underbrush and hedgerows are a perfect nightingale home, she explains, but now they’re managing some of the brambles to create a more diversity of habitats and to connect separate areas of the land. New trees will take a while to establish, but young trees from the nearby oaks are already establishing themselves in the fields; the team have been setting up barriers to shield them from animals.
Wildlife Reappears in Droves
In addition to the nightingales – fauna is returning in large numbers. Lately they’ve seen serpents, creatures, bats and invertebrates, notes Noah Bennett, as he uncovers one of their survey equipment (similar to a cover over a small hollow in the soil). “You get snakes and things sheltering under there, but it’s likely a bit cold for them now.” Natural beehives, built using carved parts of wood and buzzing with insects, are strapped to some of the woodland. The absence of livestock has provided insects space to thrive in the long grass. When they visited this season, comments he, “I’d not once observed so countless lepidoptera. There were just masses of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”
Origins of the Project
The first founders – Bennett, Jack, Molly and more individuals – united as youth, pursuing or having an passion in nature. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the safe limit of 1.5C of warming was seeming unachievable, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the school strikes for eco-awareness, and advocate another voice was addressing young people feeling “eco-worry”. It was also the era of a writer's book, on rewilding, on how they transformed the a Sussex location from a unsuccessful agricultural business into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were super-inspired by the example, but what was the role for young people?” says Molly. “So we developed a website and rang up many of wildlife trusts and were saying, ‘Do you sometimes get your estate holders wanting to make changes and you don’t have capacity?’”
Jack continues the story: “Our complete initiative was fundamentally based on the belief that there were people who were ready to let a bunch of youthful enthusiasts on to their property indiscriminately, to make major choices that would impact land value
