My dad used to give a simple explanation for why he brought beavers back to Scotland. “What right do we have to criticise Brazilians for chopping down their tropical rainforest if we refuse to restore our temperate rainforests?”.
Beavers were killed off in Britain in the 1600s, trapped for their thick and fashionable fur. Since then, the wetlands, fens and marshes that they maintained have been ditched, drained and ploughed over. Landscapes rich in bugs and fish and mammals, with abundant coppicing undergrowth, meandering streams and cascades of ponds have become regimented monocultures where the rainwater rushes off, stripping topsoil and flooding cities downstream.
Beavers are nature’s engineers. Our plants, animals and fungi evolved alongside the extraordinary dams they build, coming to rely on them to filter streams, prune trees, and maintain a steady water table.
