From the archive
25 Oct 2026
Beavers have been gone from Britain for around 400 years. Beaver Trust, a charity set up in 2019, is working to return them to rivers in England, Scotland and Wales. Moving the animals to suitable sites is the job of its restoration team, which also helps the owners of that land, and the people living nearby, find practical ways of coexisting with beavers.
In 2025 the trust helped with 22 releases. One was the first authorised wild release in England. Others took beavers into Scottish catchments new to them. The same year it finished a major survey of the beavers already living along the River Tay. Its campaign, Making Space for Water, wants landowners paid to make room for the animals. Support among the British public, by Rewilding Europe's account of surveys, is already strong.
The trust has now joined Rewilding Europe's European Rewilding Network. Some of its work already reaches beyond Britain. It includes research and population surveys in Italy, following beavers that are moving into the north of the country from across the Alps without anyone carrying them, and other projects elsewhere in Europe. Through the network it hopes to help partners plan and deliver reintroductions.
Part of the case for the animal is about water. Rewilding Europe reports that beaver ponds hold water back and soften both floods and droughts. A 2026 study of a Swiss wetland shaped by beavers found it locking up carbon as much as ten times faster than similar ground without them, close to 1,200 tonnes in 13 years.
Rewilding Europe · Read the source