The South East Rivers Trust is joining an ambitious new partnership to strengthen Kent’s wild beaver population and explore how beavers can support the recovery of healthier rivers and wetlands.
The three-year Building up Beaver: Enhancing population resilience and coexistence in the Stour project is being led by Kent Wildlife Trust with funding through Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme, backed by Defra.
The River Stour is already home to England’s largest population of wild beavers. The project will help secure its future through carefully managed releases designed to improve the population’s genetic diversity and long-term resilience.
It will also create a nationally significant model for helping people and beavers thrive alongside one another.
Understanding how beavers shape rivers
As a core delivery partner, the South East Rivers Trust will help build the evidence needed to understand how beaver activity affects freshwater environments.
We will monitor ecological conditions before and after releases, looking at changes to:
- river and wetland habitats
- fish and invertebrate communities
- biodiversity
- water quality
- natural river processes
Our teams will use techniques including habitat surveys, fish and invertebrate monitoring, water quality sampling and environmental DNA, known as eDNA.
By tracking changes over time, we can strengthen understanding of the role beavers may play in restoring rivers, creating varied habitats and supporting more resilient freshwater ecosystems.
Identifying opportunities across the Stour
We will also map habitats alongside rivers throughout the Stour catchment.
This will help identify opportunities to improve habitat connectivity, restore natural river processes and strengthen the corridors that wildlife uses to move through the landscape.
The findings will support future river restoration, help landowners explore potential funding opportunities and inform wider catchment planning, including the delivery of Local Nature Recovery Strategies.
The River Stour at Stodmarsh © Kevin Harding
Helping people and beavers coexist
Beavers can bring important benefits to river environments, but their return can also create practical challenges in some locations.
The project will work with more than 250 landowners, farmers and local organisations to develop effective ways for people and beavers to coexist.
As a member of the East Kent Beaver Advisory Group, we will help share knowledge, build understanding and work collaboratively with landowners, communities and conservation partners as beavers expand across the landscape.
The project is being delivered by Kent Wildlife Trust in partnership with Beaver Trust, South East Rivers Trust, the East Kent Beaver Advisory Group, the North East Kent Farmer Cluster, the University of Kent’s Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology and Natural England.
Together, the partnership will create practical solutions for Kent while generating knowledge that can inform beaver management and river recovery across England.
A wider investment in Kent’s wildlife
The beaver project forms part of a £1.28 million investment secured by Kent Wildlife Trust through the Species Recovery Programme.
The funding will support several projects helping vulnerable species recover across Kent, including rare woodland invertebrates, heath fritillary butterflies, turtle doves, water voles and red-billed choughs.
For the South East Rivers Trust, the Building up Beaver project represents an important opportunity to combine scientific monitoring, habitat restoration and collaborative work with communities and landowners.
The evidence gathered will help guide future nature-based solutions and support the long-term recovery of healthier, better-connected and more resilient river catchments.
We look forward to sharing updates as the project progresses.
Building healthier rivers for wildlife and communities
Discover how we restore rivers, wetlands and habitats across the South East, working with communities and partners to support healthier, more resilient catchments.
