"When you are young and naïve you think the professionals involved will sit down soberly, look at the evidence wisely and then labour long to achieve a good end based on sound science and experience. As you get older you realise that it is commonly not this way. Reintroduction is now the only hope for the water vole. They are too far gone from most of their ancient haunts even if their decline could be halted where they still remain, and it can’t. There is too much of our infrastructure in the way. Too many obstacles. There is not enough time, and left to themselves they will simply continue to dwindle and decline.

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Protected by unionised employment, they retreat like mauling morays back into a complex reef of incompetence that affords them the refuge they require. Afraid of their power to influence, refuse licences or cause critical delay, most of us say nothing. This affords succour, which we should seek to deny. Time, circumstance and society are on our side. Better to try than not. If we don’t then they will just continue to feed fuel into the furnace of the train that takes both our natural world and all of us together hurtling over the precipice of destruction and into the depths of the dark."

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Derek Gow

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Bringing Back the Beaver

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