The Beaver vs. The Banker: Why our Planet's future is being stolen from us and how we can ‘steal’ it back.
We are witnessing a “Green Grab” that threatens to finish what the Enclosure Acts began. To save the British countryside, we must first admit that our model of land ownership is fundamentally broken. If you look at a map of the British Isles, you see a tapestry of green: hedgerows, rolling fields, patches of woodland. We are conditioned to view this landscape as a natural inheritance, a timeless vista. But this is a lie. The British landscape is not a product of nature; it is the scar tissue of a thousand-year political struggle. It is a geometry of exclusion. For the last twenty-seven years, I have devoted my life to a single, somewhat radical purpose: the reintroduction of beavers. On the surface, this is an ecological mission. But if I am to say the “quiet bit” out loud, my motivation is also deeply political. I promote the beaver because it is the only effective agent of “land theft” currently available to us. When a beaver dams a stream and floods a valley, it pays no rent. ...