By Roger Harrabin BBC environment
analyst
3 June 2017
Beavers should be re-introduced
to England to improve water supplies, prevent floods and tackle soil loss, a
researcher says.
New results from a trial in Devon
show muddy water entering a beaver wetland is three times cleaner when it
leaves.
The farmers' union, NFU, warns
that beavers brought back to Scotland have damaged fields and forestry.
But Prof Richard Brazier, who
runs the Devon trial, says farmers should thank beavers for cleaning up farm
pollution.
Unpublished preliminary results
from his tests for Exeter University showed that a pair of beavers introduced
six years ago have created 13 ponds on 183m of a stream.
The ponds trapped a total of 16
tonnes of carbon and one tonne of nitrogen - a fertiliser that in large
quantities harms water supplies.
During heavy rains, water
monitored entering the site has been thick with run-off soil from farm fields -
but the soil and fertilisers have been filtered out of the water by the network
of dams.
"We see quite a lot of soil
erosion from agricultural land round here (near Okehampton)," he told BBC
News.
"Our trial has shown that
the beavers are able to dam our streams in a way that keeps soil in the
headwaters of our catchment so it doesn't clog up rivers downstream and pollute
our drinking and bathing waters.
"Farmers should be happy
that beavers are solving some of the problems that intensive farming creates.
"If we bring beavers back
it's just one tool we need to solve Britain's crisis of soil loss and diffuse
agricultural pollution of waterways, but it's a useful tool."
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