A natural builder is making a comeback in France — and it could help fight climate change - Futura-Sciences

Thought to be gone from France for good by the early 1900s, the Eurasian beaver has made an impressive comeback. In Montlahuc, a small hamlet in the Drôme region, a single beaver family arrived in 2020 and turned a sun-scorched field into a lush wetland. Now, this natural restoration is inspiring local farmers to rethink how they tackle climate change.

Montlahuc, home to just 40 people, sits tucked between the Vercors and Baronnies mountains. In recent years, worsening drought has dried out meadows and weakened nearby forests. “Not long ago, the hay we harvested for our sheep, goats, cows, and horses just kept getting worse,” says farmer Marc-Antoine Forconi.

That all changed in 2020 with the arrival of a beaver pair and their young. Within three years, a dry pasture transformed into a vibrant wetland: 2,000 square meters of standing water, insects and birds returned, and the rest of the meadow turned green and fertile.

How? The beavers dug a trench and built small dams using sticks, stones, and mud to slow the Aubergerie stream. “We used to graze this land only once a year. Now, it’s thriving,” says Forconi.

The beaver: nature’s quiet engineer

The Eurasian beaver is easy to miss—about 4.5 feet long, weighing 30 to 75 pounds—but its engineering skills are impossible to ignore. “It can take down a one-meter-wide oak tree in just a few nights,” says Paul Hurel, ecological engineer and national coordinator of France’s Beaver Network.

With sharp teeth, powerful jaws, and an instinct for stacking branches and stones, the beaver is a natural hydraulic expert.

Inspired, local farmers followed its lead. They built a dozen small step-like dams from logs, earth, and branches. These simple structures slowed water flow and helped revive the pasture. “Honestly, the beavers outperformed us,” says Forconi.

This approach follows a principle known as regenerative hydrology, which encourages every drop of water to stay on the land as long as possible. It’s costly for humans—planting 3,000 trees, building fences, using tractors. But the beaver does it all with no machines. As philosopher Baptiste Morizot and artist Suzanne Husky put it, the beaver is “a hydrologist with eight million years of experience.”

Comeback of a species—and some controversy

Beavers were once widespread in France, but centuries of hunting for their fur, meat, and castoreum brought them to near extinction—only about 100 remained by the early 20th century. Protected since 1968 and reintroduced in the decades that followed, their numbers are now between 20,000 and 25,000.

They’re slowly returning to rivers like the Rhône, Loire, Rhine, and Moselle, and even expanding into new areas like the Tarn, Hauts-de-France, and Eure. “It’s a slow process because young beavers only leave home after 18 to 24 months,” explains Hurel.

But not everyone is thrilled. From 2021 to 2023, about 200 disputes were reported—mostly over dam-related flooding or chewed-up fruit trees. Some still see them as pests. That’s why France’s Biodiversity Office offers technical help: tree protection, flow-control pipes, and coexistence guides.

In Montlahuc, though, people are hopeful. The original beaver family hasn’t been seen for months, but cut logs and stick piles suggest they might return. Here, the beaver is seen not as a problem, but as a partner—bringing back water and helping reshape the land after years of extreme weather.

The beaver’s quiet return shows how one species can profoundly reshape a landscape and offer real, nature-based answers to the climate crisis. But the bigger question remains: can we learn to coexist with natural engineers like the beaver—and use their ancient wisdom to guide our modern practices, instead of pushing them away?

Cécile Breton

Journalist

Since childhood, books, photography, and travel have been part of my world. Fascinated by life, by the stars, by landscapes that tell stories without a single word, I quickly realized that I needed to express what I saw and felt.

Passionate about the world around me, I first pursued a degree in History at university, driven by my fascination with the stories of the past and the great civilizations that shaped our world. But over the years, another truth became clear: I didn’t want to spend my life in archives or research. I wanted to be out in the field, behind a camera or in front of a microphone, sharing what I learned.

So, I took a new path. I chose journalism, to learn how to tell stories differently—with rigor and clarity. I learned how to write, to interview, to edit, to capture both attention and emotion.

Giving meaning and sharing what matters

Since then, I’ve worked across different media: print, web, radio, television, and video. All of this has allowed me to bring to life topics that matter deeply to me: nature, animals, space, and the major environmental and human issues of our time.

Today, I continue my journey as a journalist at Futura. As part of the editorial team, I strive to share knowledge with curiosity, clarity, and passion. My guiding thread? To make visible what deserves to be seen, understood, and shared—and to keep my sense of wonder alive.