Beavers are coming home! - The Wildlife Trusts
The Wildlife Trusts congratulate the UK Government’s decision to open the door for licenced reintroductions of beavers into the wild and its acknowledgment of the free-living populations in several parts of England.
Today the Government announced that applications to return beavers into river catchments in England will be accepted. This paves the way for this native species to roam wild in British rivers and lakes once more, helping to create wetlands and increase biodiversity. Natural England has developed a detailed licencing regime and application process to make sure that stakeholders are engaged and landowners are supported.
Only 14% of rivers in the UK are in good ecological condition and beavers are natural ecosystem engineers, retaining as well as releasing water, filtering pollution and creating the conditions for an explosion of wetland and river wildlife. The Government recently committed to spending billions of pounds on hard infrastructure to combat flooding as well as compensating farmers for lost crops due to changing weather patterns. Releasing beavers represents a nature-based solution to many problems our rivers face and are shown to significantly reduce flood peaks.
The return of beavers has been carefully planned over a long period of time. DEFRA ran a public beaver consultation three years ago showing overwhelming support for reintroducing this keystone species; changes to English law made them a native species in October 2022.
The Wildlife Trusts have been at the forefront of campaigning for the return of beavers. In 2009, the very first beavers were legally released into Scotland through a partnership between Scottish Wildlife Trust, Zoological Society of Scotland and what is now Forestry Land Scotland. In England and Wales, Devon Wildlife Trust led the five-year River Otter Beaver Trial to assess the impacts of beavers that were reintroduced under licence into the River Otter and explored how they could work with landowners to mitigate any localised issues. Elsewhere, Wildlife Trusts have built large enclosures to house beavers and test their return to Britain. The Wildlife Trusts are now poised to work with partners such as the Beaver Trust to return beavers to all Britain’s major river catchments.
Posted On: 28/02/2025
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