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The richly complex call of the songbird is a uncommon sound in England nowadays, but not at this rural location. Four years ago, a lone bird could be noticed at this remote spot in rural Surrey; this summer, they were everywhere. “We were listening to them calling all night, from multiple areas,” explains one ecologist, chief environmental expert for the youth rewilding group. A team of Youngwilders were camping out at the property, yet the birds were so loud, “we stayed awake all night,” says an engagement lead. “We were all exhausted the next day, but it was so cool.” An expert from the regional nature organization came to help them net and ring one of the birds the next morning, she states: “He’d never touched a nightingale in his hands before. He was teary.”

Ecological Restoration Speeds Up at the Surrey Site

Rewilding is by definition a slow endeavor, but at this site at this property, after merely four years, the outcomes are already apparent, and audible. The farm used to be a haven for horses. Now it’s a showpiece for the Youngwilders’ goal: to hasten habitat revival, in one of the biodiversity-poor nations in the planet, and to link the younger generation (18-30-year-olds) with a ecosystem they are often denied access to, and a climate crisis they are often unable to prevent. Global heating persists, tree clearing damages wildlife homes, and yet another international meeting ends with a unsatisfactory outcome in abroad – so who could fault youth for choosing to act independently?

The project was premised on the notion that there were landowners ready to permit a bunch of youthful enthusiasts on to their property

“The younger generation is the best educated ecologically that there’s previously,” explains the group's founder, a key figure. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the challenges, and have played the smallest part to their origin, and, then, are also going to suffer the greatest as a consequence.”

Change of the Site

Now, the group is growing across the Britain – and this location planted the seed, in every sense. “It’s the initial project, and where we built our community,” notes Molly Easton, as she offers a walkthrough of the 12-hectare land. “This was previously six different fields,” she says, as we walk through overgrown meadows featuring shrubs, bordered by mature woodland. “The primary visible transformation is that we’ve removed all the enclosures, 1.2km of it, to give the sense like a single environment.” In the warmer months, they wore hazmat suits and cleared large amounts of giant hogweed, an invasive species that can irritate the body. “We’ve planted many of hedgerows,” notes the director. “But the key action is we’ve just allowed it to rest for a brief period. We’ve eliminated a lot of grazing pressure and observed what’s come up.”

Low scrub and shrub lines are a perfect songbird habitat, she comments, but now they’re managing some of the brambles to develop a greater diversity of environments and to join separate areas of the property. Young saplings will take a while to grow, but saplings from the nearby oaks are already growing in the meadows; the group have been installing guards to shield them from wildlife.

Animals Returns in Large Numbers

It’s not just the songbirds – fauna is reappearing in abundance. This year they’ve seen serpents, creatures, bats and bugs, explains Noah Bennett, as he uncovers one of their monitoring tools (similar to a cover over a small hollow in the earth). “You find creatures and wildlife hiding under there, but it’s possibly a bit cool for them now.” Wild nests, built using empty parts of timber and humming with pollinators, are strapped to some of the plants. The removal of animals has given insects opportunity to thrive in the long grass. When they visited this time, says the director, “I’d not once seen so many butterflies. There were just masses of them. We were wondering, ‘What is going on?’”

Beginnings of the Project

The original founders – Bennett, Jack, Molly and additional members – formed as youth, studying or expressing an interest in environmental science. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was indicating that the safe limit of 1.5C of warming was seeming out of reach, a prominent figure was guiding the demonstrations for eco-awareness, and advocate Clover Hogan was discussing young people feeling “eco-worry”. It was also the period of Isabella Tree’s work, about nature recovery, on how she and her husband changed the a Sussex location from a failing farm into a thriving natural habitat. “We were deeply influenced by the Knepp story, but what was the part for youth?” asks Easton. “So we developed a online presence and called numerous of environmental organizations and were asking, ‘Do you occasionally get your estate holders wishing to make changes and you don’t have resources?’”

Durant adds the story: “Our complete organisation was basically based on the idea that there were individuals who were prepared to permit a bunch of young enthusiasts on to their estate freely, to make significant actions that would impact land value