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That beautifully intricate melody of the songbird is a rare presence in the UK today, yet it's different at the Surrey site. Back in 2020, a single bird could be noticed at this secluded place in the countryside of Surrey; this summer, they were all around. “We were hearing them singing all night, from multiple areas,” notes a lead scientist, top biologist for the Youngwilders. A team of Youngwilders were camping out at the location, but the birds were so noisy, “we were unable to rest all night,” says a project coordinator. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so cool.” An professional from the regional nature organization came to help them capture and tag one of the nightingales the next morning, she remembers: “He’d never held a nightingale in his possession before. He was teary.”

Ecological Restoration Speeds Up at the Surrey Site

Nature recovery is by definition a lengthy business, but here at this property, after only four years, the outcomes are already evident, and noticeable. The land was once a retirement home for animals. Now it’s a model for the Youngwilders’ purpose: to speed up habitat revival, in one of the ecologically impoverished regions in the planet, and to link youth (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often shut out of, and a environmental emergency they are often unable to prevent. Global heating persists, deforestation destroys natural habitats, and yet another international meeting draws to a frustrating outcome in Brazil – so what person could blame the younger generation for wishing to act independently?

Our initiative was founded on the notion that there were people willing to let a group of youthful enthusiasts on to their land

“The youth is the most knowledgeable ecologically that there’s historically,” says the group's co-director, one organizer. They are also “the highly invested in the problems, and have added the smallest part to their causing, and, then, are also going to suffer most as a outcome.”

Change of the Site

Currently, the organisation is growing across the Britain – and the original site planted the seed, in every sense. “It’s the initial project, and the place we established our community,” explains another co-director, as she provides a tour of the expansive site. “This was previously six different fields,” she says, as we walk through tall vegetation dotted with low scrub, hemmed by forest. “The key noticeable transformation is that we’ve taken out all the fencing, over a kilometer of it, to create the impression like a single environment.” In the recent season, they donned special clothing and removed large amounts of invasive plants, an non-native plant that can irritate the flesh. “We’ve planted many of natural barriers,” notes the director. “But the main thing is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a short time. We’ve removed a lot of animal feeding and seen what’s emerged.”

Low scrub and shrub lines are a ideal songbird home, she says, but currently they’re managing some of the thorny plants to develop a more diversity of environments and to connect separate areas of the site. Young saplings will take a while to take root, but saplings from the adjacent oaks are already growing in the meadows; the group have been setting up protectors to safeguard them from animals.

Wildlife Reappears in Droves

In addition to the nightingales – animals is returning in abundance. Lately they’ve spotted reptiles, slowworms, bats and bugs, says another co-director, as he raises one of their reptile mats (like a mat over a small hollow in the ground). “You get reptiles and things sheltering under there, but it’s possibly a bit cold for them now.” Wild nests, built using hollowed-out sections of timber and active with insects, are fixed to some of the plants. The removal of grazing horses has provided small creatures opportunity to flourish in the long grass. When they visited this time, comments he, “I’d not once seen so many lepidoptera. There were just clouds of them. We were like, ‘What is going on?’”

Beginnings of the Movement

The initial Youngwilders – Bennett, Durant, Molly and more individuals – formed as youth, studying or sharing an interest in environmental science. In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the safe limit of 1.5C of global heating was seeming out of reach, the activist was spearheading the demonstrations for environmental action, and activist another voice was addressing youth experiencing “climate anxiety”. It was also the time of a writer's book, on rewilding, on how she and her husband transformed the Knepp Estate from a failing agricultural business into a thriving ecosystem. “We were highly motivated by the Knepp story, but what was the function for the next generation?” says Molly. “So we created a website and rang up loads of wildlife trusts and were saying, ‘Do you ever get your landowners wishing to take action and you don’t have capacity?’”

Jack explains the account: “Our complete project was fundamentally founded on the notion that there were individuals who were ready to permit a collection of young idiots on to their land freely, to decide on major actions that would impact land value