A photo of a beaver,
A beaver. Credit: Tim Umphreys / Unsplash Credit: Tim Umphreys / Unsplash

Beavers are having their media moment. The  Guardian, the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, and CBC explain  how these “superhero rodents” can restore nature and help deal with climate change.

Indigenous communities are restoring beaver populations in drought-stricken parts of North America. Frankie Myers, a Yurok leader, says beavers have “gone through the same struggles against Europeans as us… viewed as pests and driven off the land.” He adds, “we’re looking to bring the beaver back again, to help us manage the land like they used to.”

Extensive research shows that by reconnecting waterways to their floodplains, beavers improve water quality and quantity, support biodiversity, increase flood, drought and fire resiliency, and bolster carbon sequestration.

Aquatic plants grow rapidly in beaver ponds and along their margins. The carbon dioxide they remove from the atmosphere remains in storage owing to slow decay in waterlogged soil.

U.K. scientists say beavers originally inhabited most of Europe and Asia, south to Syria and Northern Iran, but were hunted to near extinction by the 16th century. They note that beaver dams are sophisticated engineering works. Beavers place wooden sticks on a stone base and add a sealing layer of mud and leaves on the upstream side.  Beavers use mainly stones if wood is in short supply.

Beavers prefer poplar (Populus), willow (Salix) and alder (Alnus) species — all of which will send up new shoots. They also eat a variety of other terrestrial and aquatic species, including food crops in sparsely forested areas. Beavers are eaten, in turn, by wolves, coyotes, bears, lynx, and wolverines.

A recent “Hinterland Who’s Who” notes that preventing beaver damage to farmlands,

roads, and tree plantations “may require trapping and use of flood control devices.”  However, beavers maintain water levels, improve habitat for many forms of wildlife, stabilize stream flow and prevent stream bed erosion, so “it is important that they be managed carefully.”

Beavers should not be introduced where they never previously existed: they are invasive pests in parts of South America.

Beavers may be our number one ally in the fight against runaway climate change. The benefits they provide for the global water and carbon cycles far outweigh any local damages they may cause. Those damages can be addressed in a simple and affordable manner.

A few million other species will also lend a hand if we let them. Municipalities, resource extraction companies, developers, and property owners must join an alliance with nature. The basic message is straightforward:  Stop waging war on Mother Earth.

Designate areas currently managed for logging as “proforestation” climate reserves.  Allow urban and suburban property owners to stop mowing. Greatly restrict use of herbicides such as glyphosate and insecticides such as neonicotinoids. Repeal drainage acts. Remove unused human-made dams. Unbury urban waterways. Reintroduce beavers and other animal and plant species in areas from which they have been extirpated.

In the words of a recent Guardian editorial, beavers have become a symbol of hope for nature’s recovery, and proof that restoring ecosystems is possible (and urgently needed).

Governments should take this lesson to heart at the upcoming global summits on climate change (6 -18 November, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt) and biodiversity (7 -19 December, Montreal).

Ole Hendrickson

Ole Hendrickson

Ole Hendrickson is an ecologist, a former federal research scientist, and chair of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation's national conservation committee.