They are not essential.

“For what it’s worth, I think there are more important things than beavers,” she told a meeting of bankers and insurers in London.

Return of beavers to the wild ‘is being blocked by Defra dam’

Adam Vaughan www.thetimes.co.uk 

The government’s plan to “build back beaver” by releasing the animals into the wild is being blocked by Thérèse Coffey’s department, conservationists claim.

The environment secretary said last week that beavers were not essential to meeting the global biodiversity targets the UK helped to set last year.

“For what it’s worth, I think there are more important things than beavers,” she told a meeting of bankers and insurers in London.

Boris Johnson said in 2021 that the UK would “build back beaver” as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) consulted on the issue. Defra gave beavers enhanced legal protections last year, seen as a key step in paving the way for releases.

Yet officials are telling beaver proponents that they can be released only into enclosures, not into the wider environment. Coffey said the department was “still considering” the proposal.

Her lukewarm view on the return of beavers is at odds with some senior officials. Tony Juniper, chairman of the regulator Natural England, speaking minutes before Coffey, said the reintroduction of beavers in the “right catchments” would be “very helpful” for the recovery of wetlands.

Juniper also told a recent event on the restoration of chalk streams that beavers could help with some of the water shortages facing the south and east of England. He said that beavers on the River Glaven in Norfolk had kept the head of the river flowing.

Beavers are considered a “keystone” species in ecosystems. The habitats they create can help other species. They have been mooted as a way to reduce the risk of flooding, because their dams can slow the flow of flood water.

Wildlife groups wrote to Defra in February asking for clarity about the release of beavers. Trudy Harrison, an environment minister, told them that Defra was continuing its “work with Natural England”.

Beavers were hunted to extinction in England but in 2014 they were photographed on the River Otter in Devon, the first in the wild for centuries. Defra initially planned to trap the beavers but granted them a licence to stay in 2015. A five-year trial concluded they were beneficial to the environment.

The Wildlife Trusts, a network of charities that runs beaver enclosures, said it was being hampered by a lack of government leadership. Rob Stoneman, a director, said: “The government has inexplicably blocked the return of beavers to the wild.”

Beaver projects being considered include one on the Isle of Wight and enclosures exist in Kent, Cornwall, Essex, Derbyshire and Cheshire.

The government is believed to be waiting for a report by the environment select committee on the reintroduction of the species. A Defra official said: “Beavers are just one of several formerly native species we have supported the reintroduction of.”