London’s beavers solved a flooding problem
Reintroduced beavers have been credited with halting flooding in a west London neighbourhood that was routinely deluged after heavy rainfall.
For years, flooding was a persistent problem around Greenford tube station, leaving the local council facing expensive engineering works – until beavers came along and fixed the problem for free.
“I just can’t believe how much they’ve done in a short period of time, they basically said ‘step aside, humans’,” Şeniz Mustafa, England’s first urban beaver officer, told Positive News. “Even in situations like on Monday, where there was really heavy rainfall, the area didn’t flood.”
Some 400 years after being pushed to local extinction in England, beavers were introduced to Paradise Fields – a 10-hectare stretch of land in Ealing borough – in 2023. Since then, they have reengineered the landscape around Greenford with a series of dams, which have not only helped alleviate flooding but also boosted biodiversity.
“We’ve had four new species in the last 11 months alone,” said Mustafa. “One of them is the stickleback, which now lives alongside dragonflies and damselflies. There are tadpoles, freshwater shrimp, toads, too. None of that would have happened without beavers.”
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Image: Eliot Sachot
