Reform UK council backs release of beavers amid party row over rewilding | Reform UK

A British Reform council has backed the release of wild beavers into the countryside, despite party opposition to rewilding.

Reform-led Leicestershire County Council has backed the release of the rodents as part of efforts to reduce flooding.

The Labor government recently legalized the release of beavers in England, around 400 years after the animals were hunted to extinction for their fur and the oil they produce.

The animals are praised by conservationists for the habitats they create by building dams on rivers, which can reduce flooding during periods of heavy rain while storing water in the landscape during drier months. They have also been found to improve water quality and increase the number of bats, fish, birds, amphibians and invertebrates.

Reform councilor Adam Tilbury, the council’s cabinet member for environment and flooding, told the BBC: “We all know that Leicestershire is very badly hit by flooding, and beavers are great natural engineers who could be part of the solution. » He said two potential beaver release sites in the area had been identified and he also believed the rodents could boost tourism.

Joseph Boam, another Reform Leicestershire councilor, celebrated the news by posting on

There has been a row within the Reform Party over rewilding, including the reintroduction of locally extinct creatures such as beavers.

Ben Goldsmith, nature campaigner and co-founder of the Conservative Environment Network, was approached by Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, to help draft the party’s nature policy. However, Reform Party spokesman Richard Tice rejected the idea of ​​working with Goldsmith, whose ideas about freeing wild animals and returning farmland to nature have angered farmers.

Farage said he was speaking with Goldsmith and was “interested in his ideas”, but the party rejected proposals for large-scale rewilding, saying such policies “are not aligned with its principles or objectives”. Goldsmith released beavers on his Somerset estate and was one of the most vocal advocates of rodent release in the UK.

Commenting on the announcement that the Reform Council supported releasing the beavers, Goldsmith told the Guardian: “Nature is at the root of everything. Protecting it must be a non-partisan goal, although there may be debates about how to restore nature. If the fact that the Reform Party is coming out in favor of beavers is an indication that the party will put in place an ambitious set of nature restoration policies, it will be great news – not least because it will put the bar higher for other parties as well.”

Farage recently criticized plans to replace figures on British bank notes, such as that of Winston Churchill, with wild animals, saying the Bank of England intended to “replace people like him with the image of a beaver”, and calling the move “absolutely brilliant”.

Polls show that center-right voters who might consider voting for the Reform Party are turned off by the party’s antipathy toward environmental policies. The party’s political leader, James Orr, showed that polls of leading figures on the right indicate that more than 80% of Reform voters care deeply about nature, and that Conservatives, more reluctant to vote for Farage’s party, care more about the issue than all voters.

Reform has been contacted for comment.