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That beautifully intricate melody of the nightingale is a rare presence in Britain nowadays, yet it's different at the Surrey site. Previously, a single bird could be detected at this hidden place in rural Surrey; lately, they were in multiple locations. “We were listening to them chirping all night, from several zones,” explains one ecologist, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A team of participants were camping out at the site, but the birds were so noisy, “we were unable to rest all night,” comments Layla Mapemba. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them trap and mark one of the songbirds the next morning, she recalls: “He’d never touched a songbird in his hands before. He was teary.”

Rewilding Accelerates at Maple Farm

Rewilding is by its very essence a slow process, but in this place at the farm, after just a short period, the changes are already visible, and hearable. The property was once a haven for animals. Today it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ mission: to hasten habitat revival, in one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world, and to engage youth (18-30-year-olds) with a natural world they are often denied access to, and a global warming issue they are often unable to prevent. Global heating persists, tree clearing eliminates wildlife homes, and another Cop summit comes to a unsatisfactory end in Brazil – so who could criticize the younger generation for wanting to act independently?

Our initiative was premised on the belief that there were landowners willing to let a bunch of young idiots on to their land

“The younger generation is the most knowledgeable in terms of nature that there’s ever been,” states the group's co-director, a key figure. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have added the smallest part to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer most as a consequence.”

Transformation of the Property

Today, the initiative is growing across the UK – and Maple Farm started it all, in every sense. “It’s our origin point, and the place we established our network,” notes Molly Easton, as she offers a tour of the 30-acre property. “This used to be six different fields,” she comments, as we move through long grass filled with shrubs, surrounded by established trees. “The main visible transformation is that we’ve eliminated all the barriers, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like one landscape.” In the recent season, they wore protective gear and removed masses of giant hogweed, an non-native plant that can burn the skin. “We’ve established loads of hedgerows,” notes Easton. “But the key action is we’ve just given it space for a short time. We’ve removed a significant amount of livestock impact and observed what’s emerged.”

Low scrub and shrub lines are a ideal nightingale environment, she comments, although today they’re cutting back some of the thorny plants to develop a increased range of environments and to link up different sections of the property. Fresh plantings will take much more time to grow, but new growth from the surrounding oaks are already establishing themselves in the open areas; the team have been installing protectors to safeguard them from grazing deer.

Wildlife Reappears in Large Numbers

There's more than the songbirds – wildlife is coming back in large numbers. This year they’ve seen grass snakes, creatures, bats and bugs, explains another co-director, as he uncovers one of their reptile mats (similar to a mat over a small hollow in the soil). “You get snakes and animals sheltering under there, but it’s probably a bit cold for them now.” Organic homes, constructed from hollowed-out parts of timber and humming with insects, are strapped to some of the plants. The absence of animals has given insects opportunity to prosper in the long grass. When they explored this summer, states he, “I’d not once encountered so countless lepidoptera. There were just swarms of them. We were saying, ‘What is occurring?’”

Inception of the Initiative

The first Youngwilders – Bennett, Jack, Easton and two others – united as learners, pursuing or expressing an passion in nature. In the recent past, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was forecasting that the safe limit of 1.5C of global heating was looking unachievable, Greta Thunberg was spearheading the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and advocate Clover Hogan was addressing youth experiencing “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of Isabella Tree’s book, on rewilding, on how she and her husband transformed the Knepp Estate from a failing farm into a flourishing wildlife haven. “We were super-inspired by the case study, but what was the part for young people?” questions Molly. “So we developed a website and rang up many of wildlife trusts and were saying, ‘Do you occasionally get your property owners seeking to do something and you lack capacity?’”

Jack adds the account: “Our whole project was basically premised on the notion that there were people who were prepared to let a group of youthful idiots on to their property indiscriminately, to take major decisions that would affect land value