Book Review Corner: Bringing Back the Beaver

This month Landscape Architect Matt Northall has been reading the book Bringing Back the Beaver: The Story of One Man's Quest to Rewild Britain's Waterways by the author Derek Gow.

Matt says: In his book Derek Gow, a farmer-turned-ecologist gives an inspirational, impassioned and often hilarious first-hand account of the movement to rewild Britain’s landscapes through the reintroduction of beavers.

It has become the single most dramatic and nature conservation act of the modern era across Scotland, Wales and most recently England, with the European Beaver now a protected species under UK law.

Rewilding is going to be one of the most critical concepts of this: we live in a country that is devoid of most of its fauna and flora and is now one of the most nature-depleted in the world (we’re ranked 189 out of 218 countries).

Historically, beavers were a native species to Britain. Sadly, around 300-400 years ago their populations were decimated by hunters and trappers.

Derek and his friends have been covertly reintroducing the European Beaver since the early 1990s - in the face of opposition from the government, landowning elites and even some conservation professionals.

Beavers play a vital role in our landscapes, creating complex dam systems that “form absorbent wetlands full of the felled timber they discard”. This in turn “slows the flow of floodwaters”. By creating dams, beavers also create natural-water-filter systems and healthy habitats for creatures ranging from frogs to butterflies.

As the book says: “As they labour and burrow; create woody dams; scent mark their leaf piles with their camphor-rich juice; build, browse, and bicker; and fell trees with ease, the beavers wrapped up in their works for a day, don’t know, care or wonder that all that surrounds them is made by their actions…that it needs them and without them would fade swiftly away.”

Bringing Back the Beaver makes a passionate case for returning one of nature's great engineers as a critical part of our solution to flooding and future drought, whilst ensuring the creation of essential habitats that enable biodiversity in Britain to thrive.

This book highlights the importance of a holistic and combined approach to water and land management throughout our landscapes, along with the importance of nature-based solutions which we can begin to mimic through design.