Beavers, which were hunted to extinction in Britain in the 16th century, are making a comeback and in the process are helping to restore valuable wetland ecosystems. Known as nature’s engineers they restore wetland habitats through dam-building and felling trees, slowing, storing and filtering water in their habitat, which attracts other wildlife and reduces flooding downstream.
In the UK, 90% of wetland habitats have been lost over the last 100 hundred years. These waterlogged environments are rich in biodiversity and the loss has led to a drastic decline of wildlife. They are also important in countering the effects of extreme weather conditions, storing and absorbing the water flow during floods and storms.
Guy Henderson heads to Devon to see beavers flourishing in English rivers. Derek Gow, a key figure in rewilding beavers, shows the difference they have made to his land. As the former farm was being transformed, Gow also introduced a number of other lost British species, turning it into a biodiversity hotspot. Recent changes to legislation mean the beaver now has protected status in England as it does in Scotland and elsewhere in Europe.
the animal proletariat
So, fun fact! As someone who lives in a biodiversity hotspot (we have like half the world’s species of passerine birds iirc, among other things) that’s Not A Good Thing. The marketing is that a biodiversity hotspot is a place with a high level of biodiversity, but that’s only half of it. The other half is that the biodiversity is under significant threat - so for example, 90% of wetlands on the ~4m acre swan coastal plain, including among others some very rare, ecologically important peat bogs, have been lost to development, and that’s why I live in a hotspot instead of just a place with a high level of biodiversity.
yayyyyyy
sometimes I wonder why I bother with this whole enviro science thing, we ain’t fixing this shit. Humanity is going to keep on cooking til we boil the fucking oceans dry then get annoyed that we ran out of gas.
The only way I survive horticulture is by repeating a Lenin quote like a mantra: “I am certainly not radical enough. One can never be radical enough; that is, one must always try to be as radical as reality itself”. We’re stuck on the vanguard of the climate collapse, but that background makes us uniquely equipped to become as radical as the reality of it and really purify the hate in peoples’ hearts.