23 July 2025
01:07:56
Chris Jones
OVERVIEW:
Curly Steve and Chris Jones discuss what happens when you let nature take the lead. From his Cornish farm, Chris shares how introducing beavers transformed not just the landscape but his entire approach to farming. They dive into the real impact of these quiet engineers: slowing flood surges, cleaning water, boosting biodiversity, and quietly challenging how we manage land in a climate crisis. Chris, co-founder of the Beaver Trust and lead partner at the Cornwall Beaver Project, gives grounded, first-hand insight into working with nature rather than against it. They cover everything from parasite-free cattle and dry toilets to licensing red tape and the future of wild reintroductions. It’s a quietly radical conversation about trust, change, and the simple power of giving space back to nature.TOPICS
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One beaver dam can hold back thousands of lers of water, slow flood surges, create entire wetland ecosystems, and filter out pollution. All without concrete council approval or a project manager, although they do
still need a license. Hi, I'm Curly Steve and I'm searching for a greener room. Chris Jones introduced beavers to his Cornish farm eight years ago. Since
then, he's the lead partner at the Cornwall Beaver Project, co-founded the Beaver Trust, and watched as these quiet engineers transformed his land from farming to reing, from flood management to biodiversity. This is a story what happens when you let nature lead the way. Chris, welcome
to the show. Thanks for asking me on. I'm delighted to have you here and really keen to uh hear your story. If we could rewind a little bit though before um before any beavers came along. Um what was going on before um or where did you hail from and what was your journey before Woodland Valley Farm? Well, um I
was born uh just outside Short Lane's End and then we moved to Woodland Valley Farm in 1960. Uh and dad ran it as a mixed farm, milking some cows, keeping some hens, keeping pigs and sheep,
growing some vegetables, field vegetables, all sorts of the whole range of things really the farmer could do. But that gradually as he grew older that became uh less and less uh and it became more or less a dairy farm I suppose. Uh and then um
he died uh when I was let's think now 20 probably nearly 30 when he died and none of my siblings wanted to take the farm over. So I said I would
um and so I've been farming there in my own right since 1990. Um and we turned it into a a beef suckler herd. Um and uh that collapsed during the BSE period. So I had to go and get a job and I got a
job in the North Sea producing oil and gas. And then um while I was doing that, we let the farm go out to a company that grew daffodils and they proceeded to beat the hell out of it,
you know, with over cultivation, overspraying with all sorts of nasty chemicals. Uh the the whole thing was was was a nightmare agriculturally. Um and we lost a lot of soil and we had you know by the time they were leaving
we had erosion gullies over a foot deep. Yeah you never thought we'd see that in this country with our kind of soil but no there it was. So it said to me uh going forward we had we had to be very very different in our
approach and so we joined the soil association and we became an organic farm dating from that time and tell me what what's what's an erosion gully? Did you was it an erosion gully? What's that? Well, an erosion, it's like a little ravine that's been
worn out of the ground, and it's where you've got too much water that's trying to wear get away across piece of countryside which is overly cultivated. So, the the ground can't withdraw water.
it's just um you know it's too compacted and the water just runs off the soil and takes the soil with it uh where it ends up in the sea in the end. So as a farmer that's a pretty desperate
place to be, isn't it? It's desperate for everybody because the soil fundamentally is the the natural wealth of the county. uh and uh a lot more of the wealth of the county is tied up with uh tourism and
people wanting to come to clean beaches and this kind of thing. And so if you've got half your uh top soil ending up in the sea, it's not very good for that. Um because it's not just not top soil, it's also manure, all sorts of things in
there that you just wouldn't want to be getting into the sea. So what what year was it that you took it back from the from those farmers? Uh 2001. And so your goal then was to sort out the land and whichever way you could. How how did you go about that? Exactly. Well,
mainly by not growing any or only growing very very few crops. We really um mostly grew grass. Uh we did grow some cereal every winter. um to to feed cattle through the winter. But after a while of doing that, I was I've
been very curious about carbon and the carbon situation for a long time. And I um found that if we didn't cultivate our herd of cattle uh became carbon positive, i.e. they were storing
more in the ground than they were emitting. So, um, we got more and more into that and eventually stopped doing any plowing, uh, and, uh, just having our cows eat grass, which sounds like the obvious
thing to do, and it really is the obvious thing to do. Um, so our animals have a a very natural diet. Um, and there's lots of other goodies come with that. So, for example, we are planting trees in our fields to give them shade and shelter,
uh, which will help them stay out over winter more. Um, we we want to keep our cows out for the winter anyway. It's it's not great for animals to be brought indoors. Um, so we can do that, but the other thing is we move the cattle every
day and that breaks up parasite life cycles. uh once you've broken those parasite life cycles, uh there's no way way for them to get infected with stomach worms, for example. Uh and so then we're not using any medicine for that. And if you're not
using any medicine for that, we're then creating uh a situation where there's lots of big animals with virtually no parasites in them. um we're not spending money on the the parasite cure and we're not spending time and
money and stress move the animals around the farm to get them to a place to treat them. So altogether we're running the farm in a much more what I would call a a semi-natural kind of way. Um a bit more like wild animals. you know, they
the only times they ever really come indoors are for a TB test or if you have a particular problem with one over birthing, let's say. Uh but otherwise they live outdoors more or less like wild animals but in a in a way where we're using what
we know about um the the lavi of these uh worms and so on. knowing that we if we keep them separated then uh that means the LVI dies cuz it hasn't
got a par hasn't got a host and the cattle just go on and uh you know they'll be they'll be caught a mile a day a couple of days later. So you know it's keeping animals moving all the time. What then? What that means is you've got a resource there of car
manure which is in biological terms very clean. There's no nasty chemicals in it. And that means you're getting lots of dung beatetles in there. And it turns out that dung beatetles are a favorite food of great
horseshoe bats. And you know, we go into all sorts of excitement when we talk about great horseshoe bats because they're quite rare. Uh um but if you've got lots of clean dung beetles, you can have lots of nice, happy, thriving great horseshoe bats. Um and and it's it's one
of those things that as we've gone along, we just learn more and more and more stuff. Uh, and we can see it works more and more positively um in in uh in a number of different ways. So So you got happy cows, happy dung beatetles, happy bats.
Uh yes. And happy me because I'm not buying stuff that I need don't need to buy. Absolutely. That's incredible. So um so what that's the process of um that you've you sort of looked at to uh to to change the farm back to a good uh a good soil or is there something else that
you've done now? Well certainly um the soil quality improved and one of the elements uh that you find in soil is organic matter. uh and we have just about doubled the organic matter in our soil since we started. And uh for organic matter that
would be shorthand for carbon. It's it's not quite but it's uh it's very easy to uh make uh a good estimate of how much carbon you've got once you know how much soil organic matter you've got. So, so we think we're improving
the the climate performance of the farm if you like, but also uh we're having animals who are living in a way which is properly semi-natural. You know, the only thing we don't have is lions and cheetahs and things chasing after them, but apart from that, they live in a very
very semi-natural way. Um, and that I think is good for lots of things because you we tend to get lots of lovely wild birds like skyllocks and so on um coexisting with the cattle. uh and um I am
personally I'm quite satisfied that we can have a a cattle industry or a dairy industry which does very little if any damage to the natural world pro provided we're prepared to do the work that it takes to
do it. Um uh you know a lot of people make a lot of fuss about uh uh cattle and sheep and so on but the marupost is always it's not the cow it's the how and you can you can keep them in
such a way that is really bad news for the environment and for other things that live live with us or we can turn it on its head and do things in a way which is utterly positive uh for us as uh uh fellow fellow travelers on this uh little spaceship
whizzing around a solar system. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, but these all they require uh uh positive changes of attitude and so on. And something I would say is over the years that we've learned is if you want to change something
a little bit well just kind of change things change the way you do things. If you want to change things a lot, you change the way you see things. Start to see things in a different way. And then we can get to uh some really interesting kind of places.
Excellent. Excellent. So, so you saw things in a different way about maybe uh 10 years ago when you uh thought about getting beavers onto the farm. Tell me a bit about that journey. Yeah. Um uh it it started for me a bit long ago than that when I saw that uh
beavers were living in Kent. Uh, and this would have about I don't know 2006 or seven. Be was living in Kent inside an enclosure but also outside an enclosure.
And I'm thinking, well, hang on a minute. If we've got beavers running around the home counties, why isn't there a riot? Uh and of course you look into it and you see that in most cases most cases in this country beavers
are not going to cause a riot. They're just going to mind their own business do their thing and it will have relatively little impact upon people. Not to say no impact, but generally it's relatively low low impact. Um
uh but you know as as we talk further we can talk about what those um what those impacts are and when they can get really heavy. But uh believe me, if there was anything desperate going on, the Daily Mail would have been all over it. Like a
like a dog in a dust bin. Yeah. They'd have been really going for it, I'm sure. So tell me, so so they came on your radar sort of early 2000, 2006. Yeah. Um so how where did the journey go from there? Well, I knew there was a plan to
bring Beveris back into Scotland and I thought that was really interesting. Um, cuz obviously lots of space up there and uh they could get them out and about very quickly. But in fact, uh, Nature Scott,
which were then called something else, but their version of Natural England anyway, they um they had a plan to put beavers out onto uh the west coast of the country at a place called Napdale.
And Napell is one of these strange geographical places which has virtually no connection with anywhere else. So they were essentially stranding these animals there. Uh and um they they did all that uh in 2009
and there was a very funny letter in the in the paper afterwards congratulating them on doing this work congratulated on on uh an investment in the future of the uh ecology of Scotland. But rather than going and spending half a million on
beavers from Norway, why didn't they just go across to the hotel and get some for nothing from there? And that made me think again, well, here we are. There's a a large impactful animal that's alive and uh free roaming around
Scotland. And where's the outcry? Uh, and there was a bit of an outcry to be sure with those ones in Scotland, understandably so really, but still nothing really hitting national news every week. Um, as we might expect if
something was really that serious. Um so so that got me thinking more and then uh we found out that um uh beavers might be really good for flooding. People were talking about that. So our local village flooded twice in
2012 and then again twice more in 2013. And we thought we should learn to hold more water on the land. We invited the environment agency and they came and saw it and he had lots and lots of things
that we could do like making leaky woody dams and digging little ponds off to the side of the river. All sorts of things that we could do to help the situation. Uh but no money whatever. no resources at all. So, we just said, "Well, what if
we got it um got beavers to do it for free?" And he sort of we looked at the floor and looked at the sky and they said, "Yeah, I suppose that would work." Yeah. Uh so from that point we we made it our business to start up this project uh which was essentially a
partnership between me and the wildlife trust. wonderful things was that we had made friends with Professor Brazier from Exat and he or his department did some very
good research down there um looking at the way the water worked uh before the beavers and after the beavers. And this this was almost almost as soon as they got there, they began to stretch out the amount of
time it took for water to pass through the enclosure. And before the beavers, it would take about 10 minutes or so. after the beavers. Well, today uh eight years on it takes
oh gosh nearly two hours for that to pass through. So it's had an extraordinary effect. Um and uh the the flood peak that before was a really sharp uh mountain on the graph is now much
much flattened out. And it's not so much that beavers can stop flooding is that they disrupt all the different uh mechanism mechanisms for flooding
that there are um and uh reduce those and basically just reduce the potential for flooding actually happening in a place downstream. Uh, I would never claim that my two beavers have stopped the flooding. I
think that would be unfair on them. But if instead of those two beavers working there on 200 meters of of stream, if we had I don't know eight beavers, 10 beavers working on the whole of the catchment above ladic, it's
very hard to imagine it ever flooding, ever flooding again. So have you had any floods since they've been in place? We have not. But I would never ever claim that it was the beavers that had done that. Um because we just don't have enough
so far. I think in time we will get enough and there's loads of habitat. Uh corn is a wash with good beaver habitat. We just need to get the beavers out there. But um while you can do that, it's a
very considerable effort uh with planning uh with planning that um and setting up a up a scheme that will get past Natural England because they're the regulator. Let's move on to done by them. Let's move on to that uh in a in a while. Let's look at first of all in on
while the beavers have been on your land, what benefits apart from obviously slowing down the water, what what are the benefits of of them being there? Well, um they've slowed the water down so it's helped with flooding. They have
uh held a lot of water on the site which is very useful for droughts. It means we've had water twice now that we could pump out of there and use in other places on the farm and that's amazing. Without the without the the the ponds
they just wouldn't have the water. So that's tremendous. Um they do a lot to clean up the water. You know, we're quite lucky in that all the land above us is essentially grassland and the main pollutant that comes with
that is nitrate. Um, but we don't have a huge amount of it. Um and indeed they try and they tried to uh um measure that if you like the the nitrates thing and um we've had anywhere
from a 20% difference from the top to the bottom up to an 80% difference from the top to the bottom. So there's no doubt whatever that these animals are cleaning up the stream. And when you look in the dams, you see there's a lot of silt. Uh and again, before the
beavers arrived, that silt wasn't there. It was in Farmouth Bay. Now it's not on Farmouth Bay, it's on my farm where it's come from where it should be staying. Um and uh you know we have surface against sewage and various people always uh
moaning about water quality and rightly so. But it's not just southwest water. It's everything that's happening to that water between the A30 and the sea. And I'd like to think that um surfers against sewage could find it themselves to really get behind the the beaver idea as well as thump southwest
water frequently. So I used to um I used to come up to your farm probably around 2010 I think it was. Um we used to do a bit of bushcraft in your wooded area and uh I've also been up a couple of times since um you've had the beavers uh once maybe last year and then uh once um just
a few weeks uh well just last week. Um and I noticed the uh the immense amount of water you have standing there now that you didn't have beforehand. Um so how's that uh how's that helped the farm? I think just
holding more water means a certain amount is is um draining down into the aquifer or into the into groundwater which is a good thing um because I mean we take our water from a bore hole for example but also uh it's it's really
good because the more water we keep there um the more water is going to end up in the dream uh and heading off keeping fish happier, for example. And certainly within the the the beaver system with all those dams there, the
fish can all move around between them um as they want to. Uh and the way the dams are arranged makes them very complex um in terms of vegetation and where things are and that is incredibly good for animals like fish because they've
got plenty of shelter. So they've got plenty of food in there from insects and other invertebrates and then they've got plenty of shelter uh from predators. So fish tend to grow fast. Um and indeed the uh the bit of research that was done about this was the beers went in in 2016
and two years later the um be the fish were surveyed. That was trout in particular and they found the trout had doubled in size. Oh wow. Inside those ponds and in some of the ponds they're more like eight times bigger. Um, and there's fish in there
now which would be worth worth catching to eat, you know, if you if you were uh down on your luck and needed to catch a trap to eat. Yeah. So, that's interesting cuz I um I read about um people uh complaining, let's say, about uh about fish not being able
to get upstream when the beaver were putting dams in. So, how do they how do they make that happen? Um well the the the dams are all connected by different little streams. So the fish just move themselves as they
feel the need to. Um you know when we started there there was one stream only but now there's four streams across that land. Uh, and some of them go into each and
every one of the dams. Some of them only go into one or two of them, but there's basically water across that site now, which makes it very easy for fish to move around and and so the biodiversity as well, you said about the fish having more food. So since the beavers have been there that your um your species levels have gone
up. Tell me a little bit about that. Um the the um the the whole picture has changed since these large bodies of water came into being because the water flows through
them very very slowly. And this this gives the chance to support a lot of algae. And then if you got lots of algae, that's like having your first stitch in the food web. Uh, and you get all the things that like
to eat algae and then all the things slightly bigger that likely like like to eat those things until you eventually get a sort of a biological soup. Uh, and it's supporting big vertebrates like uh bats, like amphibians, you know, um, frogs,
toads, uh, nes. It's supporting reptiles like grass snakes and then it's supporting a whole range of mammals like pole cats and uh utters and uh water shre that kind of thing. Um so
you're basically by adding the beavers you're supercharging the potential for an area to support life. And if you think about it, it sounds very trit to say it, but water is life.
And if you build up a nice reserve of water, a lot of things are going to take notice of it um and to to use it, to utilize it. Uh I I I can't put it any more simply than that. Um but if you imagine a imagine a a bonfire
uh and a a stream in terms of its bio diversity, it's genuine a little bit like a bonfire. You know, it's in your garden. Little bit smoky uh bit crackling and popping and the odd little flame here and there perhaps.
If you add beavers to that bonfire, it's like adding petrol to it. it just goes nuts. Um, and it it's very very hard for some people, I think, to to appreciate that um until they go and see it. Then when
they see it and you and let's say they've got their bat detector and finds there's half a dozen bats, different bats on any given night, you we got 11 different sorts all together over a year go there. um all of this life and it's basically coming just because the
beavers have kicked things off. Incredible. That's fantastic. So So I'm interested in your beavers are uh captive, so to speak. They have they're they they have fences around to stop them going any further than what is it? Five acres, did you say?
It's a 5 acre enclosure. Yeah. Yeah. So, what would what would be the difference or what would um be the benefit of getting rid of the fences and let them just roam the land? Would they would they head off or are they do they stay local or That's a really good question. My feeling is
that once they've invested their time and effort in creating a nice enclosure with a nice um territory with um multiple dams and uh multiple lodges and all this kind of thing, I think they see that as home. Yes, they will leave home,
but they tend to come back again um once they're established. That's the adults and the and the the younger members of the family. The oldest older members of the family when they get to about two years old or so, they will want to move. They want to go off and find a place of their own
because the the parents won't tolerate any other animals breeding in their territory. That is just not going to happen. So, how would you feel about um if there was no um regulation, how would you feel about uh ripping down the fences and um letting them go off and do their own
thing? I think it's a really good thing to do. All I would say is it's also quite useful having it there because it's a place we can bring people so they can see and you know, we know that's where they are. Um
yeah, other parts where you've got properly wild bees, you may never have chance to see one. Uh and indeed, you may go there looking I want to I want to see a dam and I want to see a lodge and it just may not be there. It may not be
possible to do. So it's quite good I think to have a place which is although it's not entirely natural allows us to demonstrate all the stuff that bevers do and it's a it's a beautiful space up there isn't it it is a very nice space and it's a very
um I find it a very inspiring kind of space uh and you we have made changes in there. We put in a walkway, for example, but apart from that, we haven't really done anything. So, any tree
that is smashed up and lying around on the ground, that's down to the beavers. I wanted to ask you about that. And how much human intervention have you put in since the beavers arrived, apart from fencing and and the walkways? Um the fencing and walkways
are it really. Um we've had to improve the fencing in one or two spots since they arrived because of their uh attempts to to escape. Um and the walkway came in. We wanted to be able to
bring people in wheelchairs essentially because wheelchair users don't have many very good wildlife sites to go to. And that's a a very good little wildlife site. And you can go in there with a a
self-propelled wheelchair and go anywhere anywhere anyone else can walking. So yeah, I've been very impressed with how people have used it. Excellent. Excellent. So that's you're you do tours down there on a on a weekly basis with the uh wildlife trust. Um and
and anyone can come along to that, can't they? They just have to book online. Yeah. Online first. Yeah. So um what have the challenges been? because you've you've talked about licensing and policy and um push back from you know media and funding and
what's what have been the main challenges and uh how have you uh how have you mitigated those? Well, we were very lucky with Corn Wildlife Trust. They were very keen. They didn't have land of their own they wanted to do it on and they didn't have um
they didn't have the resolve I think internally to make it happen but they helped us immensely to make it all happen. Um uh and perhaps I'm being unkind when I say they didn't have the resolve. I think they did have the resolve actually. Uh, and anyway, they had
people there who knew how to do things like crowdfunding because it was very obvious that there was no money going to be coming from any official source. Um, you know, that was just not even a consideration. Um and so uh their people got onto crowdfunding and
we made it uh within the time limit and they we even had a a stretch target and um instead of 15,000 we got 20,000. That was great because that allowed for some training and some uh
a really good trip to Bavaria to see how bees are managed there. So that was all all great. Um uh since then I I suppose challenges are keeping beavers where you want them
because once they've got to that two-year age, two years of age, they want to go. Mhm. Uh and uh and I suppose a big challenge has been trying to catch them um at the right time um so you can move them onto another another enclosure. Um very sounds very
easy but it's it's not necessarily at all. And in fact, what we have had now uh is several animals escape and uh we know there are several living out in MidCormal. Um but that's been very normal
with other beavers. Um let's see now. Uh there's wild beavers living on the foy and on the camel and on the um tamar of course uh and on the par
river um and you know anyone could go and try and see those uh anytime they wanted I guess provided they weren't trespassing. Um and yeah, the power river ones luckily are half in a wildlife site. So you can
you can go and have a look there. Very hard to see of course, but you can see what they've done. And that's in a way I say people it's much more important to understand what they've done than actually seeing the animals themselves. The animals themselves, they're great.
a very attractive, fluffy animal, but actually what they do is is just beyond imagination. It's phenomenal, isn't it? And and they're classed as I I read that they're they're the best land engineers in the world. Um potentially alongside is it
the hippopotamus or the rhinoceros, something like that. Uh I I think they are exceptional at the way they manage water. Um, and you know the ones at Helman Tour, if they put the dam they have
couple of hundred yards downstream or a couple hundred yards upstream, they would have hardly changed anything. As it is, they've managed to find, god knows how exactly the right spot to make an incredible change uh to the land
there. Um yeah, there's about a two or three acre pond they've built which is just phenomenal. Phenomenal. Excellent. And so um so on that note, could you give us a a a sort of brief guided tour of a of a beaver?
Um I should imagine most of our listeners haven't uh haven't seen a beaver before and um they've got some interesting uh uh bits, haven't they? Yeah, they they're are very um uh highly adapted to a watery lifestyle.
Um first off, they are around about 20 kilos in weight. Uh and that's a very average weight. They can be uh 30 or even 35 kilos. Oh goodness. Right. Yeah. Uh so so you know they're not to
be trifled with when you got to pick one up. Um they have a big flat tail uh which is used for a variety of things like it's a store of food. You know they can they can put on put on fat in that tail. They can use it for swimming and
as a as a rudder. Uh they can do um uh use it as a balancing aid. You know, they do a lot of work on their hind legs. So, you can have their ba their beaver tail stuck out behind them, move it one way another just to keep the animal upright. Uh they can be used as a
a seat, something to sit on, and they can even eat their own feces off it. Uh because they p practice copraagi uh which is because their diet isn't very exciting. They need to eat it twice sometimes. So there's a whole load of
things to do with the tail. Then coming forward, you've got very powerful hind quarters, big big muscles on those back legs. Uh and they're the main thing for swimming. You'll see uh their tails um uh sorry, their uh their hind feet paddling like a duck or
whatever uh underwater. You see it quite clearly if one swims past you. Uh and then um going forward they've got uh much much smaller feet but with very very powerful claws and they use those for digging but they're dextrous too. You know their
their third let's think about it. Uh no this their second digit can be used as as a thumb. Uh I go around something the other way. Um, so it's it's a very dextrous and very
powerful hand. Um, and then uh after that they've got a really pronounced red or orange teeth and that's from iron that's in their teeth and it makes them very very hard
on the front surface. So when they're chewing through bits of timber and so on, their feet, their teeth are um selfsharpening. Uh and then their cheeks can close in behind those. So they could be
underwater and chewing through a a stick or a root perhaps. Um so that's that's their their teeth. uh or I should say that those lips they they close behind so it stops them swallowing any water which for an animal
that is in out of water all the time is very important and then coming up to the ear the uh ears and the nose and the eyes the the nose is particularly important they have incredible sense of smell um
and again those nostrils have a sphincter in which snaps shut as soon as it goes in the water. Uh and and that means once again it's impossible for it to take on water by mistake. Uh then we've got the eyes and they have a transparent eyelid again so they can
see underwater a little bit. Uh and then finally the ears. And the ears they they're uh quite good sense of hearing, but they also um um
lose less heat by having small ear. So, it looks like a ridiculously small uh ear on such a big animal, but actually they work really well and it's just to save them on water. And then finally, the fur is in two
layers. There's a um what they call guard guard hair first, which is fairly sparse, but relatively coarse and helps keep um the hair underneath protected. And the the under fur is extremely dense and
very soft. And it's that that got them in trouble. It was that that underfur which keeps the animal warm and waterproof. They could take that off and turn it into hats. And there was a an industry that lasted 200 years in Europe. And we were just we just mined the
the bees out of North America. It was it was just like mining and it was so important. uh well there's companies today still existing uh that uh was started off by that that rush for beavers. You think of the Hudson's Bay Company still going
strong um and um it caused the exploration of the continent. It led to wars between different tribes of Native Americans and it led to wars between the French and
the British and then the British and the uh Americans in due course as well. They are just it was just a thing that was I guess in the same way that the whaling industry became important at the time. It was incredibly important and a lot of
money was uh was made and lost out there. funnily enough, of course, the people actually did the catching were mostly the Native Americans, and they would catch things in exchange for, you know, rum, brandy,
whiskey, uh, steel knives, steel axes, um, mirrors and trinkets for the ladies, all that kind of thing. Um, and, uh, you know, fortunes were made There's a family called Astera which uh
which did very very well out of the fur trade in America. Quite extraordinary when you think about it. Um and we're at a time now it seems like it's it's uh taken forever. We're at a time now where
Natural England will accept license applications to let beavers go and the Kal Wildlife Trust are doing some at for the river par on the river foy but we need to do a lot more. There's a lot of places in Cornwall that do have real
flooding, but um nothing's ever going to be done to really fix it. Uh because the places are too small. Um so we need to be getting behind any efforts at all to get more rivers licensed. Um, and uh, we're
waiting to see how the wild just get on with what they've got there. And then I would imagine by the end of this year, beginning of next year, we should be really looking to open the floodgates, so to speak, for uh, for Cormand and and start getting
beavers back on the map where they should be. That's that's fantastic. And that's a lot of down to the work that you've done and the research that's been able to be done on your land. Yeah, that's fantastic. Oh, congratulations. Well, uh, thanks very much. It's it's it
feels like it's a bit premature yet. We need to get more more animals out there, more licenses granted. Um, it's uh
it's a funny old thing, you know, the the Natural England who are the the regulator um they could be doing this themselves really cheaply, but instead they want to make it really expensive
and pass pass the buck to um wildlife organizations like the Wildlife Trusts or to private individuals. Uh yeah, it's it's uh it's pretty poor really. You know, a uh a nation that took
pride in these things would be looking at doing it themselves. And I I can't I can't think it's that expensive really. uh you know half of 1% of our annual flood budget would cover it would cover it well I should think. So uh so Chris
tell me what uh what gives you hope right now. I am very encouraged by the likes of the river Otter and the river Tamar and the river Aven in in um Gsters and
Wiltshire. They've all got thriving populations of beavers on them. And those have come either from escapes from uh established um enclosures like we've got
uh or it's come as a result of so-called beaver bombing. And if that's the result of beaver bombing, what we've seen is so wholly positive that uh I think we could do with more of it. Um certainly I'd like to I'd like to
think that the natural England will be very positive in regards to the um in regards to the um applications that they're faced with uh and getting those applications turned around quickly uh
and getting more beauties out there into more rivers. Um it's all of that kind of thing that gives me hope. Um you know, climate change is not slowing down. In fact, if anything, it's getting worse. But just about everything that beavers do
uh is very positive in terms of climate change. Uh I think it's very hard to argue otherwise on that. and and um I'm I'm given hope by I think newer generations of farmers and land owners who are perhaps more
tolerant perhaps of of of wildlife or at least appreciate what wildlife can do for them as opposed to something just to uh get rid of quick. Yeah.
Wonderful. So, um, thank you so much for that, Chris. That's, uh, that's well worth thinking about. Um, so next up, we're going to look at the evidence that, uh, that you've brought along. Um, we're going to have a bit of fun by giving you one minute to talk about each piece of evidence. Uh, Alex over there
has got a bell and, um, after one minute, he's going to ding the bell. And uh so your first piece of evidence is Free Against the Wilderness, a book by Eric Collier. Yeah, it's an extraordinary book. Uh
it's covers a period of time from the 20s through to the 50s and even 60s, I think. Here's a man born in Scotland, goes to live in Canada and works for the Hudson's Bay Company. Um, and he decides he wants to get out into the bush
himself and be a trapper. And that sounds quite unpromising today's parlance, but actually he does an amazing job and manages to reintroduce beavers to his river, which has the most astonishing effects in really quick time. Um, well well worth a
read uh if you want a good primer into beavers and what they do. That was almost exact. It sounds like you've been practicing. Excellent. So, the second one you've got here is Eager, which is a book by Ben
Goldfob. Yeah. Okay. He will uh Ben is essentially a journalist but a a scientific journalist and he got excited about beavers I guess
10 15 years ago and mostly in America um but also in Europe as well and he visited an awful lot of people that I have come to known love myself. Um and uh it records
if you like the the the upto-date situation with bees in North America and and in Europe. Um you know there's there's about 15 million in in North America now, maybe up to 3 million in Europe and things kind of moved on.
Go on, you can finish off. I was just going to say that things have moved on really well uh from the uh from the 50s. Excellent. Okay, so that one looks like a good one to read. Uh the next one here is the Cormal Beaver Project. Well, the Cornwall Beaver Project, this
is something was started up by myself and the Corn Wildlife Trust, and I think it's been an exemplary way to uh reintroduce beavers in terms of a an enclosed uh place. It's been used for a lot of research over the
years by a lot of students uh not just from uh Penrin or wherever but um from Duchy College uh and we've even had people from as far away as Durham uh come there and do work. So it's been it's been very visible. We made no
attempts at any kind of secrecy about it at all. We weren't worried that people might come and let them out or whatever. Um, we just felt it was best Go on, you can finish up. Yeah, we felt it's best that everyone knew all about it. And I think it's been a really good uh good advert for the
animals. So, presumably, is that research all open uh available to look at? Absolutely. Excellent. And that's that's on a on a website somewhere. Um uh we don't have a central um repository if you like. Uh but it's
um we've got some ourselves that we've done but also uh exun university have got their own um papers and what have you and indeed uh Cambridge have done some and reading has done lots lots of different people from lots of places. It all gets
recorded somewhere. Excellent. Okay. And then uh the fourth one is the otter beaver project. Well, the river otter uh was the first open licensed uh project in the country. Um and it
started because some beavers either escaped from somewhere or were bombed. uh and it's it's basically provided the basis for beaver management uh going on from now and into the future. Um and it's the basis of the
the licensing uh work that has to be done to get the license from natural now. So, uh, luckily the people who did all the work on that, they're still around and we can, uh, learn a lot from it. Um, I'm not saying that it's it's, uh, not saying there aren't better ways of
doing things, um, because there might be, but there's a huge amount of ind of experience being gained from that. Excellent. Okay. And the the the last but not least is the farm carbon cutting toolkit.
Yeah. Um this is sort of back to our uh core activity which is still farming. Um and it's opened a great deal of information to me about how soils work and how cattle work and so on. and that uh an awful lot of things which
we think oh they're really bad because of X actually turn to be gez they're really good um uh and uh I would say that anyone who's got any interest at all in how farming works and how the carbon cycle
works within farming would do very well to get hold of the carbon cutting tool kit and uh I'm really into it. It's not rocket science. Fantastic. That you did really well to keep within the minute for each of them. Have you been at home rehearsing this?
I haven't actually. No. So, um so next up, we have got your five top tips. And once again, we're going to do a minute for each. And your first top tip is grow some of your own food if you can.
I think it's really important that we all uh whatever our circumstances try to become a little less dependent on the corporate world for our food. um mainly because
they can fail and I would hate to think of all the milligous people in this country uh when that happens uh just sitting there gently starving because they don't know how to create at
least some of their own food. And I think there's no better time to start than now. And if you're local, get involved with Nuki Orchard. Good timing. And uh and I think it's important to add there that you can grow food as long as you've got enough space
to put one pot. Yeah. So the number two here you've got um install a dry toilet toilet. I'm interested about this one. Um this is vital to me. Our whole setup with toilets is designed uh to excrete some really valuable
resource into drinking water and then flush it away with a couple of gallons more of drinking water for it then to go somewhere. It's going to get treated by throwing a lot more drinking water at it. but eventually end
up in a river and the sea. So in other words, we just learn to we're just designed to throw stuff away in a very linear fashion. We can't afford that. If you look at the way that nature works, nature works in in cycles.
Go. Well, I was just going to say if and if we can have a dry toilet in our house, we can then begin to compost the excretor from that. Ideally, keep the urine separate uh as well and you can begin to break this appalling chain. And
actually, you know, surface against sewage, they're great, but what we actually need is a fundamental change to the arrangements we have for touristing. Yeah, absolutely. And I I understand the the the the water that goes with that is
enormous. And if that uh if that wasn't going through our sewage systems, then it wouldn't necessarily be getting to the sea. Yeah. like that as well. Interesting. Um, so buy local and organic. Okay. I think a lot of us are are
worried about the quality of our food. Uh, and for me food should come from soil. uh lots and lots of lovely soil.
The soil association which is behind uh most organic farm businesses insists that this is how you do business. Uh so if you want to have food that is good for you, buy organic. I know it's easy to say
it's more expensive, but then you could start growing more of your own, which would not be expensive and be very, very cheap. Do it organically. Don't be spraying too much stuff just cuz it looks ugly or whatever or this, you know, blackfly.
Amazing. Um, number four, actively support beaver reintroduction. This is something that um we're working on now within Cornwall Beaver Project is to get to this next stage where uh we've got a few wild
beavers and a few rivers. Uh the wildlife trust have taken the bull by the horns and have applied for a couple of rivers to get done. It's a massive bureau bureaucratic exercise. We need people
who are either retired or want to um volunteer in their own area or whatever to get stuck into the work that needs to be done to get more beavers released. And I'm very very happy to have my details passed on and get uh have people come to us to learn
what they could do to help. And the the fifth top tip here is visit Cornwall Beaver Project. Yeah. Uh it helps with the finances immensely. Um we we are
going to need eventually hundreds hundreds of thousands of pounds uh I think to make all this work from the Satan and Lou rivers uh down to West Penwith there's a lot of places a lot of water
uh that that could do with these animals coming back and it is going to lost money. We're looking at ways about how we can reduce that money, but it is coming and uh um anything you can do to support the wildlife trust in brackets the beaver project or cornal
beaver project directly uh is a really good thing. Amazing. And um last but not le least, what's the one thing we can all start doing today to create a better tomorrow and help us find a greener room?
I think the best thing we can do is drive less, walk more. use public transport more. And I know that's very easy to say and perhaps
harder to do, but at least if we're keeping that in the former forefront of our minds and driving less, we will be helping. You know, there's nothing like to fix this situation we're in. There's going to be nothing like using less oil
and gas. And at the moment, we're still using more and more and more and more. And somehow that's got to stop. And I think it's going to stop with individual people. Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. I could carry
on uh carry on all day. Um thank you so much for the work that you're doing for the uh for the planet. Thank you so much for uh the work you're doing for the people. and uh thank you so much for coming on today. Well, thanks very much. It's been uh quite a uh quite an experience and um
has uh dragged stuff out of me, which is a good thing to do. Excellent. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Chris. That's it for this episode of Searching for a Green Room. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Let us know what you think, who you'd like to hear from, any topics you want us to cover. Drop us a comment.
Don't forget to like and subscribe so you never miss an episode.
The Chat
The Guest: Chris Jones
Farmer, Environmental Advocate, Lead Partner at the Cornwall Beaver Project, Co-Founder of the Beaver Trust
The Chat
From Soil Loss to Regeneration
Chris shares the early days of Woodland Valley Farm, tracing his journey from traditional mixed farming through to environmental collapse under industrial daffodil growers. The devastation of the soil pushed him to rethink everything. He adopted organic farming, stopped ploughing, and started letting nature lead. His cows now graze in a rotational system that mimics wild herds, breaking parasite cycles and feeding dung beetles, which in turn feed endangered species like the greater horseshoe bat.
Building Resilience Through Beavers
Repeated local floods and the absence of state funding led Chris to a simple question: what if beavers could do the job for free? Since introducing them in partnership with Cornwall Wildlife Trust, the changes have been dramatic. Flood surges are delayed by hours, silt is held on land instead of washing into the sea, and standing water has made the farm more drought-resistant. Fish have returned in larger numbers and sizes, thanks to complex dam systems providing shelter and food. Even water quality has improved, with nitrates filtering out naturally through the beavers’ wetlands.
Biodiversity on the Rise
From amphibians to bats, reptiles to mammals, the whole site is now alive with activity. Chris compares a stream without beavers to a smoky bonfire. Add beavers, and it’s like throwing petrol on it. Everything ignites. Algae supports insects, which feed birds, mammals, and fish. Polecats, grass snakes, otters, and 11 species of bats now call the site home.
Letting Beavers Lead
Chris explains that the current five-acre fenced enclosure is useful for research and accessibility, but he’s in favour of letting beavers roam freely across Cornwall. Beavers, once settled, tend to stay. The challenge lies not in their behaviour but in the bureaucracy. Licences from Natural England are expensive and complex, pushing the burden onto charities and landowners. Still, Chris is hopeful: more wild populations are thriving quietly across rivers like the Tamar and the Otter.
Human Intervention: Minimal
Apart from fencing and a wheelchair-accessible walkway, very little has been done by humans. The space is a living demonstration of what happens when you step back and let beavers do what they do best.
A Tour of the Beaver
Chris gives a brilliant rundown of beaver anatomy and adaptations, from fat-storing tails and waterproof fur to self-sharpening teeth and underwater-chewing cheeks. Once nearly wiped out for their underfur, they are now making a quiet comeback.
Hope for the Future
Despite climate challenges and policy barriers, Chris remains hopeful. He points to the younger generation of farmers, the growing evidence base, and the sheer impact of letting beavers reshape the land.
Chris’s Top Achievable Tips
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Grow your own food, even in a pot
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Install a dry composting toilet
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Buy local and organic whenever you can
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Actively support beaver reintroduction schemes
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Visit Cornwall Beaver Project and spread the word
Chris’s Evidence
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Three Against the Wilderness by Eric Collier
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Eager by Ben Goldfarb
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Cornwall Beaver Project research and case study
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River Otter Beaver Trial (England’s first licensed wild release)
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Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit
What One Thing Can We Do Today to Make a Better Tomorrow?
Drive less. Walk more. Use public transport when you can.
Chris is clear: using less oil and gas is vital, and personal choices matter. It starts with us.
Contact Details
Cornwall Beaver Project
www.cornwallbeaverproject.org
Instagram: @cornwallbeaverproject
Email: [email protected]
