This is coming out just in time to put under the tree. I can think of several,bright shining faces that will be eager to see it. An excellent interview with the author ran at the end of September but there were always too many good climate stories to make space. Luckily it waited for us and will be for sale on the book shelves soon.

Give a Dam: PW Talks with Leila Philip

How are beavers tied up in America’s past?

They’re an extraordinary lens into our history. Explorers came here to look for beaver fur, and the American empire began with the conversion of natural resources, starting with their fur. We almost wiped them out. But through luck, the beavers’ natural resilience, and then some really good environmental policy, they were restored to their landscape.

Did that restoration have ecological benefits?

Yes. In the early 20th century, they were brought back to Connecticut, and beavers began to show us the extent to which they could repair extremely damaged river systems. When we took the beavers out of the landscape, the wetland systems began to dry and degrade. Many of the environmental problems we face today have to do with water, with river systems that are so degraded that even when it rains, the water rushes right out into the ocean instead of seeping back into the ground, hydrating everything it needs to hydrate or filling the aquifer.

There is just about nothing I like better that watching people who never ever expected to be having a conversation about beavers find themselves having a conversation about beavers. Isn’t it fun?

You write in the book that beavers make you hopeful. Why?

They’re extraordinary problem-solvers. When they have a hole in a dam, they just repair it with whatever they have to hand—a rock, a stone, some fiber-optic cable. They’ll just stuff that in. Mike Callahan, who heads up the Beaver Institute, sent me a picture of a beaver dam built around a pickup truck, which I thought was one of the best examples of our moment. I lie awake at night, worrying about the environment and the future, and I think beavers are just an extraordinary story of hopefulness. Because this is nature’s resiliency, doing what it can do, if we either leave it alone or give it the opportunity. We are in a moment where I think we need to adapt. And beavers are incredible adapters.

Theoretically the Martinez beavers will be in that book. But who knows, life is full of surprises and lots may end up edited away. But right before it went to press Leila said she was having trouble finding a great beaver silhouette and asked to use one of ours. They were made for us using Chery’s photos of our actual beavers so who knows? They might LITERALLY be in the book.

We’ll just have to buy it and see for ourselves.