This summer Ben Goldfarb and beavers go to Embercombe.
Return Of The Beaver
With Derek Gow, Ben Goldfarb and Professor Richard Brazier
A short residential course and a practical guide for those considering the reintroduction of beaver to their land.
In collaboration with University of Exeter
Embercombe is a beautiful and wilding 50 acre valley on the edge of Dartmoor. It is place to find a deep connection with nature – wild nature around us and wild nature within us. It is a place to breathe, to reconsider, to regenerate and to relearn. It is a place to get clear on what it is you have to offer the world and become passionate about who you are and what you do. It is a place to join the conversation, pick up the skills and get started.
We are joined by Derek Gow, Ben Goldfarb and Professor Richard Brazier to look at the wider implications, the challenges, the specific ecosystem benefits and the practical considerations when introducing this species back into wilding or managed habitats.
We will be exploring the current situation in Great Britain as more and more landowners introduce this species as an attempt to restore ecosystems, mitigate flooding and improve land and water quality. We will consider the lessons being learnt along the way, how we can share experience, logistics and spread positive impact. We will look at how to limit the negative impacts, and how to communicate and get involved in this important work.
We will also be considering what lessons can be learnt from the study of beavers in the United States, a country much wilder than ours, with wolves, bears, moose and many other species that have been eliminated from our native fauna. What can we learn about the role of beavers in relatively intact US ecosystems as we consider where they might fit in the restoration of ours? What are the longer term benefits for ecosystems and landowners from working alongside this species for several generations, what have been the conflicts and what measures are conservationists in the US now taking to bring back beavers into areas they have yet to colonise?
This course includes a field trip to see Beavers at Derek Gow’s farm.
I wanna go! Don’t you? A summer trip to the south of England to learn from the very best beaver minds on the planet? You have to understand that if you’re English, Dartmoor is like Yosemite and conjures up the same rugged wild images and same wistully indrawn breaths as a tale of John Muir. Jon used to camp there with his entire family and one time the huge parade of 8 hungry children ran out of food and famously had to purchase bread used to feed pigs from a nearby farmer. Embercombe is literally flanking some of the most wild land in the UK. What a wonderful place to sit by the fire and tell stories about beavers!
Of course exploration ain’t cheap. The three day course will cost you a cool 235 pounds for a shared yurt (around 300 per person), But imagine how incandescently differen’t you’ll be at the end of it.
