Surrey Wildlife Trust is asking people to back a project which could see nature’s top engineers transform Surrey’s best-loved habitats into oases bursting with life - and to donate what they can to help bring this about.   

Conservationists at the Trust hope to use Eurasian Beavers, which used to thrive throughout the UK but were hunted to extinction some 400 years ago, to re-wet areas of habitat Surrey, enabling them to reach their full potential as homes for nature. But before they apply for a license to release Beavers, they need to carry out studies to fully assess the potential effectiveness and impact of the animals on Trust reserves. 

From Tues 22 to Tues 29 April, all donations to enable this research will be match-funded to a total value of £50,000 by the Green Match Fund, a group of philanthropists who support great ideas to protect the environment. This ‘Ecosystem Engineers’ appeal is part of the Trust’s £1m ‘Save Surrey’s Nature’ campaign, which has so far raised almost £400,000 to help fight back against the destruction of nature and the threats this presents to people as well as wildlife. 

Evidence shows that rewetting habitats by creating ponds, ditches and marshy areas and allowing natural watercourses to develop through creating dams delivers benefits including: 

• Carbon sequestration – wetlands, particularly where they sit on reserves of peat, are hugely effective ‘carbon sinks’, helping reduce the impacts of climate change. 

• Flood alleviation – creating habitats that can hold back or absorb water significantly reduces run-off in times of high rainfall, thus reducing damage to habitats, property and infrastructure. 

• Wildfire prevention and containment – fires cannot spread where there are bodies of water to stop them. 

• Creation of habitat - to benefit a huge range of native plant and animal species, including species that are currently locally extinct. 

Surrey Wildlife Trust is helping to deliver the national and international goal of protecting 30 per cent of land and sea for nature. In support of this vital objective, Beavers could be key to restoring Surrey’s wet habitats on a large scale – as they have started to do in parts of the UK, including Devon, and more widely in Europe where eight of the animals are reported to have saved Czech taxpayers at least a million Euros by flooding a protected former army training site where a long-delayed dam was planned. 

Beavers’ habit of creating dams and felling some bankside trees creates natural bodies of water of varying sizes and depths that can then benefit nature with minimum investment and interference from people. New research from The Wildlife Trusts recently revealed that natural flood management schemes deliver £10 of benefits for every £1 invested. 

Surrey Wildlife Trust Conservation Manager Adam Bolton says: 

“We’re asking people to help us put nature’s top engineers back at the heart of our landscapes, to help shape them for the better. Given the essential services that nature provides, from flood prevention to carbon sequestration to better health and wellbeing, that would be something for everyone to celebrate.” 

Mirroring similar initiatives elsewhere in the UK, these ‘Ecosystem Engineers’ would need to be carefully introduced – so the first phase of the project is to deploy expert advisors as well as the Trust’s own land management team and local stakeholders to establish how to proceed. 

Donations are initially being sought to: 

• Support a detailed feasibility study into the Beaver reintroductions, and where it would be best to consider these first. 

• Enable an assessment of other habitat engineering options, using mechanical or manual methods for rewetting habitats. 

Other species which are locally extinct, but which were once an integral part of our natural landscapes, could also be a part of an enhanced ecosystem. In addition to European Beavers, Surrey Wildlife Trust plans to explore the feasibility of other respectfully-managed species reintroductions to enhance the lowland heath habitat. 

Candidates include: 

• Large Marsh Grasshopper – at up to 36mm, the largest but also the rarest of the UK’s 11 native grasshopper species.  Populations of this species have declined severely in the last half-century due to the draining of wet heathland habitats. 

• Red Deer – already used with great success by SWT on Pirbright Ranges to control scrub and maintain a healthy balance of native vegetation, this species could potentially do a similar job on other lowland heathland sites. 

• Red-backed Shrike – loss of habitat has driven this fascinating and beautiful bird, which keeps a ‘larder’ of insect prey impaled on thorns, to become almost extinct as a UK breeding species. It was once a common visitor to Southern England, and targeted releases could offer a chance of recovery.  

All the above aims are in addition to the Trust’s hugely busy schedule of managing and improving habitats across 62 nature reserves and on land owned by a wide range of public and private organisations.   

Anyone donating to the appeal will receive regular updates as the project evolves.  

Find out more and support the return of Beavers to Surrey.

Notes

1. The government recently announced that it will change the law to enable Eurasian Beavers – which previously had to be maintained within enclosed spaces, although many specimens have escaped into the wild in some parts of the UK - to be legally released into the wild as early as this year. 

2. Funds raised through Save Surrey’s Nature will also give a boost to Surrey Wildlife Trust’s drive to expand and improve the wider heathland habitat on the road to the national 30x30 goal, and enable further possible local reintroductions (or the natural spread) of species which still exist in Surrey but which have drastically declined and are currently rare. These include the ferocious Heath Tiger Beetle, specialist plants including the ‘living fossil’ Marsh Club-moss and the beautiful Marsh Gentian and rare heathland reptiles, particularly the Sand Lizard and Smooth Snake. 

3. Surrey Wildlife Trust believes that species reintroductions should only take place if there is clear and sufficient scientific evidence to justify their expense, and if clear management plans are in place to ensure they will work for nature and the local community.  No reintroductions will take place if these conditions are not met. Following any reintroductions, the introduced animals and their impact would be carefully monitored. 

4. If a decision is taken not to proceed with any of these proposed reintroductions, money raised would directly contribute to the ongoing and essential management, creation and connection of heathland habitats through the tried-and-tested methods of scrub clearance, conservation grazing and other forms of habitat management such as the creation of bare scrapes, hibernacula and deadwood retention to support a wide range of existing flora and fauna.   

5. Surrey Wildlife Trust will also assess other Natural Flood Management (NFM) techniques and mechanical or manual habitat engineering (such as the creation of banks, ditches and ponds), all of which will contribute towards the restoration of better-functioning - ‘healthy’ – ecosystems, irrespective of whether a final decision is taken to reintroduce Beavers.