Or It’s too dam hot out there, surely there’s somewhere I can lodge a complaint?
As Sussex sizzles, wildfires threaten and hosepipe bans start to bite, Sussex Wildlife Trust is turning its attention to Beavers. We and the Government are convinced that these once extinct native mammals are one of the best ways we can tackle our current and future water crises in Sussex.
Water retention is the Beaver’s raison d’être (their life’s purpose, and their mission, some would say mission impossible at the moment). Beavers are large and furry, and they do not enjoy walking long distances across hot land; they much prefer to float. So they create fantastic watery wonderlands.
Creating beavery wetlands is thirsty work, but Beavers are happy to just beaver away without recompense. And herein lies the key. These ecosystem engineering creatures behave naturally, and free of charge, in a way which not only creates vast amounts of flood storage, saving towns such as Ealing from flooding, but also gives us resilience to drought. Beavers help us to slow, store and hold on to precious water resources which are otherwise drained out to sea before we can use them.
We found out this week from the Environment Agency that the South Downs and Solent region had 1% of their Long Term Average rainfall in July. There wasn’t a huge amount of rain in May, June, or the first half of August either. We are in the midst of one of the most severe droughts in history, and it is going to happen much more often as we move into climate change. Every plant, crop and animal we know needs water to survive, and so do we.
The image below shows the Beaver pen at Knepp Wildlands on the River Adur in Sussex. It shows parched grasslands next to a lush green area, with pools of water.
We are working with a whole range of people to see if it is viable to restore free-living Beavers to the whole of the catchment. Working to manage the recovery of Beavers in Sussex gives me hope, hope that we can find solutions to crises like these, and that we can work with nature at a huge scale to restore the life-giving resources that we all need. Watch this space for beavery updates coming soon.
4 responses to “Beavers are helping us to make a splash”
What a pleasure to be informed and entertained by Harriet Trueman last evening at the Chailey Commons group meeting. I never realised that the scope of operations you folk are involved with is so diverse and meaningful. Keep up the good work (I’m sure obviously being dedicated, you will) and great meeting you Harriet – all the best to you and you group.
Hi Tony
It was brilliant to meet such an engaged and passionate audience at Chailey Commons Society. Thank you for the lovely feedback, the wider team and myself appreciate it.
Wild wishes, Harriet
It may be an idol thought but I wonder whether beavers would help out in those areas where we have winter time flooding affecting roads and other facilities. They are great creatures.
There is certainly a great deal of evidence to show that Beavers can help to reduce flooding and flood peaks. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg728erp1yo . Beavers natural instinct is to increase water levels in the landscapes they live in, to make it easier to access food and to travel around. This natural ‘flooding’ can be managed so that it benefits local communities. We hope that the Beavers return to Sussex will help mitigate both flooding and drought impacts.