Bringing Back The Beaver by Derek Gow

Beavers are native to Britain and used to be plentiful across the country. But like many other species, they were killed relentlessly and became extinct hundreds of years ago.

There are also very sound reasons why the return of beavers would make a very useful contribution to the British countryside. Their dams across watercourses create large areas of wetland that welcome large numbers of birds, amphibians, insects and plant species. They are a positive accelerator of biodiversity. Retaining water in wetlands and behind beaver dams has a very beneficial effect for humans too. It mitigates the flash floods caused by heavy rain.

Flash floods are an increasing problem in Britain. The weather pattern of year-round light rain is being replaced by longer dry periods punctuated by heavy downpours. When rain falls on high ground, which is typically deforested, it runs off into streams and then rivers. This huge pulse of water then heads down the hillside towards the sea. If the pulse of water exceeds the carrying capacity of the river, the water rises above the banks and the land around floods. This may be farmland or town, the water does discriminate. Homes and businesses are destroyed and damaged. Lives are lost. The chaos and disruption last long after the waters have receded.

(The Great Flood by Edward Platt describes the author’s journeys around Britain, meeting the victims of flooding. It is well worth reading to understand the increasing impact of flooding).

So given that there are very strong reasons to want beavers back in Britain, surely it makes sense to go ahead with a re-introduction programme? That is exactly what Derek Gow thought and Bringing Back The Beaver is mainly about how he has been continually thwarted in his attempts to do this. Gow is a plain-speaking Scotsman who loves nature. His mission is to get nature working properly in Britain by helping people to understand its complexity and by replacing the species that are obviously missing from the ecosystem.

Other people do not share his vision and have gone to enormous trouble to get in his way.

Very few people work on the land. Even fewer own it. But this countryside community has enormous influence. Politicians are anxious to keep in their good books. Officials are reluctant to confront them. As a result, the countryside changes very little as landowners carry on doing what their fathers and grandfathers did. In many instances, these are practices with very little merit. Keeping sheep on downs and hillside condemns those areas to be highly compacted, close-cropped grasslands that create a flood risk to communities downstream. Indeed, this form of farming is only possible with farming subsidies. Worse still is the forced clearing of vast estates for deer and bird shooting. Any animals and the wrong sort of birds that stray into these killing fields are shot as vermin. These areas become sterile, unable to support natural ecosystems. Yet these areas also receive massive farming subsidies simply for being there, whilst contributing nothing at all to nature.

There is little doubt that much of the countryside is broken; there is little wildlife and a crisis of soil fertility in many places. It needs change, but change is something that is deeply unwelcome amongst many people that hold sway in the countryside. For them, releasing beavers is the worst kind of change, activity over which they have no control.

Gow challenges this toxic situation with his relentless energy, ingenuity and cunning. His view is that Britain needs a countryside that is home to wildlife, as well as agriculture, and that requires healthy ecosystems. He finds allies like Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell at Knepp in Sussex. He calls out the worst of the officials like former agriculture minister Owen Patterson. He skewers the duplicity and ineptitude of government departments.

The subtext of the book is the question: what is the countryside for? Is it the arena of traditional practices that must be preserved to maintain the standing of landowners? Or is it a haven for the nature that keeps us alive? Gow gives us an assessment of the former option currently having the upper hand, but the latter gradually winning hearts and minds.

This book is very funny, brutally frank and you can learn a lot about beavers from it. You also learn a lot about Derek Gow. He is genuinely a friend of nature. It will not be mealy-mouthed politicians or risk-averse civil servants that deliver the changes that the British countryside so desperately needs. It will be people like Derek Gow who pull on their boots and coats, get out of doors and do the work.