The richly complex song of the songbird is a uncommon presence in Britain today, but it's different at Maple Farm. Four years ago, a lone nightingale could be heard at this remote place in rural Surrey; recently, they were everywhere. “We were hearing them chirping all night, from several zones,” notes a lead scientist, lead ecologist for the youth rewilding group. A group of volunteers were camping out at the location, yet the nightingales were so noisy, “we were unable to rest all night,” comments a project coordinator. “We were all knackered the next day, but it was so incredible.” An expert from the Surrey Wildlife Trust came to help them net and ring one of the birds the next morning, she remembers: “He’d never held a nightingale in his hands before. He was teary.”
Rewilding Speeds Up at Maple Farm
Nature recovery is by nature a lengthy business, but here at Maple Farm, after merely several seasons, the results are already evident, and noticeable. The farm used to be a sanctuary for animals. Today it’s a example for the youth-led purpose: to speed up ecological restoration, 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 environmental emergency they are often ineffectual to halt. Climate change advances, habitat loss eliminates natural habitats, and yet another Cop summit ends with a unsatisfactory outcome in the host country – so who could blame the younger generation for wishing to initiate change themselves?
Our project was based on the idea that there were people willing to permit a group of young amateurs on to their estate
“The newer cohort is the most informed environmentally that there’s previously,” says the group's founder, a key figure. They are also “the most emotionally involved in the problems, and have contributed the smallest part to their creation, and, then, are also going to experience consequences the greatest as a result.”
Transformation of the Landscape
Currently, the organisation is expanding across the United Kingdom – and the original site planted the seed, in all respects. “It’s the initial project, and the place we established our community,” notes another co-director, as she offers a walkthrough of the 12-hectare land. “This once consisted of multiple separate areas,” she says, as we stroll through overgrown meadows dotted with low scrub, surrounded by established trees. “The main visible transformation is that we’ve removed all the enclosures, 1.2km of it, to make it feel like one landscape.” In the recent season, they wore protective gear and cleared significant quantities of harmful weeds, an aggressive flora that can irritate the body. “We’ve established loads of bush lines,” says the director. “But the key action is we’ve just let it breathe for a short time. We’ve removed a lot of animal feeding and seen what’s emerged.”
Low scrub and natural fences are a perfect songbird home, she says, although currently they’re trimming some of the brambles to create a more variety of ecosystems and to join separate areas of the site. New trees will take much more time to establish, but saplings from the adjacent woodland are already establishing themselves in the fields; the team have been setting up guards to safeguard them from animals.
Nature Reappears in Abundance
In addition to the songbirds – animals is coming back in droves. This year they’ve seen grass snakes, legless lizards, bats and insects, explains Noah Bennett, as he uncovers one of their reptile mats (similar to a cover over a indentation in the earth). “You find reptiles and wildlife sheltering under there, but it’s probably a somewhat chilly for them now.” Natural homes, built using carved parts of wood and humming with insects, are fixed to some of the woodland. The removal of grazing horses has provided invertebrates opportunity to thrive in the long grass. When they came to this time, says the director, “I’d never observed so many lepidoptera. There were just clouds of them. We were wondering, ‘What is happening?’”
Inception of the Initiative
The first founders – Noah, Durant, Molly and additional members – came together as learners, studying or expressing an interest in nature. In 2019, the climate experts was forecasting that the safe limit of 1.5C of warming was appearing out of reach, a prominent figure was guiding the demonstrations for environmental action, and activist another voice was addressing the generation experiencing “eco-worry”. It was also the period of the author's publication, on rewilding, on how she and her husband transformed the Knepp Estate from a unsuccessful dairy farm into a thriving ecosystem. “We were deeply influenced by the example, but what could be the part for young people?” questions Molly. “So we developed a online presence and called many of wildlife trusts and were asking, ‘Do you ever get your property owners seeking to do something and you are short on capacity?’”
Durant adds the story: “Our whole organisation was fundamentally premised on the belief that there were landowners who were ready to permit a group of youthful idiots on to their land without strict rules, to take significant decisions that would change land value
