In the midst of the UK's worst living memory, a host of new experiences assault our senses. There is a field of grass. One side of the bush is swollen with fruit. Go through the grass. The mud is sticky. Don't worry, I have wet feet.
The rolling hills of the West Country are very dry. This small valley is green.
The reason water is coming out of the drainage ditch is due to the fact that there are animals in the area. The flood plain is wet because of the beavers.
Flood-fighting is the one thing that has led to the return of large fenced enclosures to England. Building dams across streams and creating ponds and channels across a valley bottom slows the flow of water when it rains. The same slowing effect keeps rivers and their aquatic plants and animals alive when there's a dry spell.
Supporters of the BEACON believe that this can benefit agriculture. Many farmers are not sure if it's true. The announcement that beavers will be protected was criticized by the National Farmers' Union. There is a question as to whether or not beavers are the salve for a thirsty landscape.
The beavers have been busy in this area since they reappeared on the river in 2008. The government initially planned to remove them after they came back after being hunted to extinction. A five-year scientific trial began after people in the area banded together to allow them to remain. The impact of beavers was studied and it was found that they brought benefits to people and the environment. Two years ago, the government made a decision. Legal protection will be given to the animal on October 1st, paving the way for more releases into the wild.
The man who studies these animals takes me deeper into the country to see how the animals are changing the landscape.
We think of the flat green bottoms of river valleys as natural, but this one has been changed by people so we can farm the rich soils of the valley. This is a typical example of a small river. We disconnected the river from the flood plain because we wanted to move the water off the flood plain. The water flowed through the rain. The water is out at sea when the weather is dry. The beavers are going to change that right away.
There are obvious benefits for wildlife. Birds flock in, and we see swallows dipping to feed above the beaver pond
Five years ago, the beavers built a dam across the stream to push the water onto the flood plain. There is water leaking through the bottom of the dam. The top of the dam is covered in branches and mud. The dam is not hard to build. It won't completely stop the flow but it will release water slowly. They didn't just stop at that point. They continue to build.
The width of the dam is 80 metres. The pond is deep enough to hold a million liters of water. The smaller ponds are linked by channels dug by the animals which make them more secure when they can swim underwater.
There is a new wetlands on a old plantation. When the beavers arrived there were 30 or 40 old poplars. There are piles of wood chips and felled trees when we push through the thick undergrowth. The trees are a good source of fresh green shoots for the vegetarians. An oak tree has wire nets around its trunk to protect it from the falls.
What happens immediately downstream of all this activity is dramatic. A single channel stream is converted into a braided river of up to 15 small channels when the water leaks from the bottom of the dam. Water-rounded stones have been worn by water in ancient history. The stream was here before. That is exposed by the damming of the beaver. The people point to the old channel. It will be in a lot of places if you let it. It shows you what a flood plain is if you want to farm there.
There are obvious benefits for wildlife and the environment from this chaotic situation. Trees that have been felled attract insects. There is an explosion of life in the ponds. Eggs stuck to the feet of wading birds allow fish to get into new ponds. Birds are feeding above the pond. Wetlands-loving bird species have exploded in number. It is also a large carbon store. If you get it functioning properly, it will store a lot more carbon than if you drain it. We are almost shoulder-high in carbon.
85% of the world's known chalk streams are found in England, and they are particularly precious due to the lack of water in the area. Steve Oliver, the rivers conserver for the Dorset Wildlife Trust, says that the water is coming through the system rather than going to the sea quickly.
In a village less than a mile downstream from the river where about 40 houses are at risk of flooding, the beaver activity is helping to hold back the flood water. But could the animals help farmers? The benefits and costs are pointed out by the man. The farmer had to relocate a field gateway because the old one was flooded by the beavers. The animals are eating some of his food. There is a swath of pasture downstream of the dam that is grazed by young cows. The new ponds could be used for both irrigation and drinking water.
It is productive farming if you look upstream. It is a mess if you look up. I think everyone is happy. He says the key is to plan it. In Scotland, a farmer lost a lot of money when a potato field was flooded by a group of animals. If there is support for the farmer to widen the strip of land next to the river, then it is a win-WIN. It isn't going to hit your bottom line if it's all planned and thought through.
Farmers are afraid of something. The chair of the NFU's environmental forum says that the majority of the arguments for beavers are about improving the environment. It would be better to manage water in a more controlled way during times of floods and dry spells. If you want to wet an upland area to benefit wildlife or reduce flood risk downstream, you can do it without the variable that is the beaver. You can't tell what it does or how it does it.
If they get to work in larger, flat valley bottoms, their dams could flood large expanses of productive farmland, even if they slow the flow of water downstream. The lowlands near York are prone to flooding. While beavers in the hills might help slow the flow in times of flood, I can think of an area near me where a beaver could set itself and cause issues for thousands of acres of quality arable land that's producing high value crops.
Britain needs to address the question of better water management in the extreme of flood and dry weather. The question is not going to be answered by the animal. The UK's water-management strategy is not going to be solved by any single person. There will be areas where they will work but the caveat is when they start to be successful and breed and move out of those areas we have to have an ability to deal with the negative side of them.
He says the problem is that the government hasn't provided details of how they will be allowed to manage the animals and move them out of areas where they cause problems. There needs to be clear rules about how and who manages the animals and where the money will come from to deal with them. There needs to be enough flexibility in the management plan to adjust how a dam performs.
The debate is polarised because farmers are skeptical. Ben Eardley is a project manager at the National Trust and he says that he doesn't think it's ever as easy as that. Wetlands are thriving even though the river is low. Eardley says that the surrounding landscape is dry. The National Trust's goal is to restore upland river systems in this area. A lot of the complexity of the landscape has been removed. The resilience of a landscape in extreme weather conditions is increased by the use of boas.
Eardley accepts that there won't be a place for them in the future. If we could use the Environmental Land Management scheme to pay farmers for wilder river corridors with more space for water and nature then perhaps farmers would be happier. It requires a commonsense approach to address the farmers concerns.
Eardley went to visit the farms in Bavaria. Farmers there opposed the return of the animals 30 years ago, but now live and farm with them. Farmers in Germany are asking what the problem is. There was a lot of resistance when they talked about the return of the bane of mankind. It isn't just about reducing the impact of animals. They want to be in good places. If you make good areas of the river for them, they will want to stay there.
We need to rethink how we use the flood plains in order to better cope with floods and dry spells. Farmers can report any problems and get an immediate response if they have a "beaver officer" in their area.
The benefits don't always accrue to some of the people who pay for it. He still hopes for a sensible national strategy to ensure that the animals are managed out of intensive farm habitats so that people and the animals can coexist. The person who bears the cost in a well-thought-out, strategic way needs to get some flow back from society.
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