Scottish Borders Council will discuss the future of beavers in the Tweed catchment as Scottish Greens Councillor Neil MacKinnon prepares to bring a motion to the council next week.
Proposing that the council formally welcome community efforts toward reintroducing the species, Cllr. MacKinnon’s motion highlights the vital ecological role beavers can play in landscape restoration. The motion will read as follows:
Council notes that beaver wetlands have a potential role in the mitigation of flooding, wildfire and nature depletion, and that Scotland’s Beaver Strategy seeks to ensure that ‘communities across Scotland feel empowered to act in an informed way to promote beaver presence and their positive impacts, and to monitor and learn from the experience’.
“Council therefore formally welcomes the recent founding of local non-profit organisation Beavers on Tweed, which is working to build the evidence, partnerships and public understanding needed for beavers to return to the Tweed catchment.”
Ahead of the debate, local organisation Beavers on Tweed has welcomed the council’s willingness to discuss beaver restoration, while emphasising that planned, licensed translocations should remain a key consideration alongside natural recolonisation.
Ben Douglas, farmer near Galashiels and director of Beavers on Tweed, stressed the importance of keeping all options open:
Scotland faces serious nature depletion, and the Tweed needs more riparian woodland, healthier wetlands and more resilient habitats. Beavers can contribute to that by creating wetland habitat, supporting biodiversity and helping water stay in the landscape for longer during both wet and dry periods.
“But it is too early to assume that natural recolonisation must be the best route. A planned restoration can allow suitable locations to be assessed in advance, involve land managers from the outset and establish an appropriate founder population.”
And Dr Philip Ashmole MBE, fellow director of Beavers on Tweed, added that bringing back this keystone species offers a historic opportunity:
For thousands of years after the last Ice Age, beavers lived alongside salmon on the River Tweed… Now we have an opportunity to rebuild, by bringing back beavers alongside efforts to restore salmon, riparian woodland and healthy wetlands, and giving the Tweed catchment more resilience in the face of a hotter climate.”
Scottish Borders Greens look forward to the upcoming council discussion and will continue championing evidence-led nature restoration that supports local land managers, communities, and biodiversity across our region.
