PLAYING IN THE MUD

I Got to Pretend I was a Beaver for a Day

A Processed-Based Restoration experience

One of my first stops after leaving the farm in Sonoma County (see the recent series: part 1 | part 2 | part 3) was at a remote location in Plumas County in the Sierra Nevada mountains for what I would call a Beaver work camp. Nikki Hill took me there to volunteer with a project run by Swift Water Design. Founded by Kevin Swift, the company implements beaver-based and process-based restoration projects to heal human-damaged watersheds.

As Kevin summarized it, watersheds in what is now the western US suffered massive deterioration through a series of events: the genocide of indigenous people and the end of their land management practices (which prevented the kinds of catastrophic wildfires we now experience); the near extinction through over-hunting of beavers (who were the original ecosystem engineers); the draining of wetlands in riparian areas (much of it encouraged by law); and relentless overgrazing by cattle and sheep (who further degraded water course structure and wiped out much original vegetation).

What we’re left with now are streams and rivers who are disconnected from their surrounding land, which has resultingly been transformed from wetlands to dry meadows and forests. Nothing against…