After centuries of beaver exploitation and loss of productive beaver habitat, the B.C. Wildlife Federation is transforming ecosystem restoration in British Columbia through its innovative 10,000 Wetlands project. This initiative leverages low-tech process-based restoration (LTPBR) techniques, inspired by beavers’ tenacious dam-building tendencies, to address pressing environmental challenges such as habitat degradation, drought, wildfires, and flooding.
2024 Progress Update
Launched in 2022 by BCWF under the leadership of Jennifer Rogers, the project has already achieved significant milestones. In 2024, the BCWF team, alongside project partners, constructed 71 Beaver Dam Analogues (BDAs) and one Post Assisted Log Structure (PALS) across seven sites, restoring and enhancing a total of 3.55 linear kilometers of stream habitat. Additionally, throughout the year, our team assessed more than 30 additional locations for future LTPBR restoration efforts in collaboration with existing and prospective partners. Read more about our 2024 partnerships and how we are driving momentum for LTPBR below under the heading in this article titled The Power is in Our Partnerships. Geneva Bahen (BCWF), members of the BCWF Watershed Team, and project partners from the Nooaitch Indian Band, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society, and Ducks Unlimited Canada at the Spius Creek BDA build near Merritt, B.C. Photo by Emma Kingsland.
Setting the Stage for Success
In 2023, Rogers, who holds an M.Sc. in Ecological Restoration from Simon Fraser University and the British Columbia Institute of Technology (with an applied research project focused on using the Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool), began building partnerships, assessing needs, and evaluating over 60 sites across B.C. for future LTPBR opportunities. Leading up to our success in 2024, our team participated in several key training opportunities to ensure we had the tools, knowledge, and resources needed to excel in our work and share this expertise with others.
Highlights include:
- Methow Beaver Restoration Project | Beaver-Based Restoration Workshop — 2023
- BCWF staff gained hands-on training in Washington State with experienced beaver restoration practitioners.
- Cows and Fish Alberta | Working with Beaver Symposium — 2023
- BCWF Staff took part in collaborative discussions with practitioners from Alberta, B.C., and Montana on beaver coexistence.
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) | Hydrometric Monitoring Workshop — 2023
- BCWF partnered with DFO, Nature Trust B.C., and the Province of B.C. to develop standardized procedures for monitoring the effectiveness of BDAs.
- Swift Water Designs | Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration Training — 2024
- BCWF staff gained practical skills in assessing, constructing, and maintaining low-tech structures like BDAs.
- BCWF staff and partners participated in a conference with academics, restoration practitioners and government staff from around the world to discuss new research, best management practices and restoration techniques involving beaver.
As building BDAs is a relatively new restoration technique in B.C., the BCWF has prioritized equipping our team at every step. Further, as knowledge sharing is a critical aspect of this work our training ensures that we can continue spreading the skills and expertise we acquire, which bolsters broader adoption of these innovative beaver-based restoration techniques.
Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration in Oregon, USA
In June, members of BCWF’s Watershed Team traveled to Bly, Oregon, for a week of intensive training in Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LTPBR). Guided by Kevin Swift and his team at Swift Water Design, along with experts from Trout Unlimited and Nature’s Engineers, the training included site visits in the Klamath Basin to explore project design, regulatory navigation, monitoring, and adaptive management. Each day featured hands-on experience building BDAs for various restoration goals, providing invaluable skills to support BDA installations across B.C. during the summer and fall of 2024.
Why Beavers?
“Beavers, and the restoration work inspired by them, provide important ecosystem benefits that have been lost or damaged over time,” said Rogers.
Before European colonization, beavers thrived in rivers and streams across North America. Early colonial settlers often documented the challenges of navigating dam-laden river systems in their journals. However, the fur trade of the 18th and 19th centuries led to the widespread exploitation of beavers, causing their populations to plummet.
By the 20th century, beavers were extirpated from much of their native range. This loss coincided with human expansion into floodplains, where productive valley-bottom ecosystems were replaced by infrastructure such as roads, farms, and dams. The absence of beavers disrupted the natural balance of ecosystems. Streams became disconnected from their floodplains, landscapes lost their capacity to retain water, and habitats became increasingly degraded. This degradation exacerbated flooding, drought, and erosion, reducing nature’s ability to recover from these disturbances and eroding resilience to future disturbances. Harnessing the water-retention capabilities of beaver dams presents a cost-effective and sustainable solution.
Encouraging beavers to adopt and enhance BDAs taps into their natural dam-building expertise, improving water storage, ecosystem functionality, and resilience to climate-driven impacts. Beaver colonies create patches of wetlands that hold water year-round, augmenting low flows in the summer, and mitigating the effects of drought, floods, and wildfires. Partnering with beavers for watershed management reduces the need for costly infrastructure, making restoration efforts both efficient and sustainable. Beavers are essential to British Columbia’s ecosystems, creating wetlands that support over 80 per cent of wildlife species, improve water quality, and enhance resilience to climate change. Their dams slow and store water, providing critical habitats for species such as salmon and trout.
“During our field work, we’ve come across many areas that show signs of historic beaver activity but without active beavers on site are now in decline,” shared Rogers. “By bringing back the natural ‘disturbance’ created by beavers, the BCWF and its project partners are letting nature take the lead in restoring and maintaining streams.”
BCWF Watershed Team building a BDA alongside a historic beaver dam estimated to be nearly a century old. This headwater stream, part of the Stream Enhancement Project on Sekw’el’was Traditional Territory, was once a thriving beaver wetland. It contains a series of historic channel-spanning dams in various stages of decay.
Using BDAs, the project aimed to mimic past beaver activity, reconnect the floodplain, restore hydrologic connectivity, and create conditions for future beaver establishment. Photo by Emma Kingsland.
Benefits of Beaver-Based Restoration
Mimicking and promoting beaver activity enables BDA project teams to enhance stream complexity, raise the water table to support plant growth, and capture sediment. Additionally, BDA construction is a low-cost approach to wetland and stream restoration and fish habitat enhancement, designed to replicate natural floodplains and ecological processes.
“While many factors are at work, we are bringing back an important piece of the puzzle to help our ecosystems build resilience against the increasing disturbances affecting our watersheds,” shared Rogers.
“Low-tech process-based restoration techniques take a leaf from the beaver’s book,” added Geneva Bahen, BCWF’s Beaver Restoration Assistant. “Beavers are nature’s wetland stewards who have shaped and safeguarded these ecosystems for millennia.”
The BCWF’s LTPBR efforts strive to replicate the essential ecosystem services provided by beaver complexes, offering direct benefits to fish, wildlife, and human communities.
Key benefits of beaver-based restoration include:
- Wildlife Habitat: Beavers build dams that create habitat not just for themselves, but for a variety of species, which is why they are called a “keystone species.” Beaver-created wetlands provide vital habitats for frogs, fish, birds, and bats, offering shelter and foraging areas for young animals to grow and thrive.
- Water Storage: Beaver dams and BDAs store water in the stream and help recharge water tables in adjacent floodplains.
- Improved Water Quality: Beaver dams trap sediment and filter pollutants, resulting in cleaner water downstream.
- Erosion Control: By slowing water velocity, beaver dams reduce erosion and downcutting and help connect streams to their floodplains.
- Resilience to Disturbances: Dams can capture and store water during times of excess, dampening the potential for damaging floods downstream. Stored water is also released slowly throughout the year, boosting water in streams during periods of drought. Because the area around beaver complexes is so wet, they do not burn easily and can provide vital refuge habitat for wildlife in intense wildfires.
- Support for Salmon and Trout: Beaver ponds create ideal slow-water habitat for fish, boosting fish populations along with recreational and commercial fishing opportunities.
“Nature-based solutions promote healthy, dynamic, and resilient ecosystems and are critical to protecting our watersheds for the future,” shared Bahen. “By harnessing the power of reconnected floodplains, LTPBR techniques reduce the risk of destructive flooding and protect vital habitats from soil erosion. Additionally, increasing surface and groundwater storage helps mitigate the risks of drought and fire.”
The Power is in Our Partnerships
With a focus on training and collaboration, the BCWF’s 10,000 Wetlands project team is strengthening partnerships with First Nations, Indigenous-led organizations, NGOs, academic institutions, government agencies, and landowners to build a network of LTPBR practitioners and advance restoration techniques in B.C. These collective efforts are driving momentum and fostering knowledge sharing and capacity building for this essential restoration practice.
“These projects wouldn’t be possible without collaboration with our partners,” shared Rogers. “Often, our partners are local stewards of the land with a much better understanding of the history of the land and how these areas once looked. They offer not only local knowledge but also a genuine dedication to improving their watersheds—whether it’s boosting resilience to floods, droughts, and fires, enhancing fish habitat, or improving forage for wildlife. They care about what is happening on their land and work hard to find ways to help.”
In 2024, our on-site project partners included:
- Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi ‘it (Tobacco Plains Indian Band)
Looking Ahead
BCWF and its partners aim to install at least 100 BDAs by 2026 as part of their broader mission to build a community of practitioners to help restore 10,000 wetlands across the province. Alongside BDAs, the team plans to implement PALS, which mimic natural log jams. Together, these cost-effective, low-tech solutions restore wetlands and riparian habitats, increase habitat complexity, and support wildlife and ecosystems while promoting biodiversity, enhancing watershed resilience, and combating climate change.
For more information about the 10,000 Wetlands Project, visit www.bcwfwatershedteam.ca or contact Jennifer Rogers at jennifer.rogers@bcwf.bc.ca.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial contributions from the Province of B.C. and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy for funding this work in 2023 and 2024. We also express our gratitude to the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program (FWCP) for funding our McIntyre restoration project in 2024 and to the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF) for supporting the initial stages of this work in 2023.
- BCWF staff and partners participated in a conference with academics, restoration practitioners and government staff from around the world to discuss new research, best management practices and restoration techniques involving beaver.
As building BDAs is a relatively new restoration technique in B.C., the BCWF has prioritized equipping our team at every step. Further, as knowledge sharing is a critical aspect of this work our training ensures that we can continue spreading the skills and expertise we acquire, which bolsters broader adoption of these innovative beaver-based restoration techniques.
Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration in Oregon, USA
In June, members of BCWF’s Watershed Team traveled to Bly, Oregon, for a week of intensive training in Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LTPBR). Guided by Kevin Swift and his team at Swift Water Design, along with experts from Trout Unlimited and Nature’s Engineers, the training included site visits in the Klamath Basin to explore project design, regulatory navigation, monitoring, and adaptive management. Each day featured hands-on experience building BDAs for various restoration goals, providing invaluable skills to support BDA installations across B.C. during the summer and fall of 2024.
Why Beavers?
“Beavers, and the restoration work inspired by them, provide important ecosystem benefits that have been lost or damaged over time,” said Rogers.
Before European colonization, beavers thrived in rivers and streams across North America. Early colonial settlers often documented the challenges of navigating dam-laden river systems in their journals. However, the fur trade of the 18th and 19th centuries led to the widespread exploitation of beavers, causing their populations to plummet.
By the 20th century, beavers were extirpated from much of their native range. This loss coincided with human expansion into floodplains, where productive valley-bottom ecosystems were replaced by infrastructure such as roads, farms, and dams. The absence of beavers disrupted the natural balance of ecosystems. Streams became disconnected from their floodplains, landscapes lost their capacity to retain water, and habitats became increasingly degraded. This degradation exacerbated flooding, drought, and erosion, reducing nature’s ability to recover from these disturbances and eroding resilience to future disturbances. Harnessing the water-retention capabilities of beaver dams presents a cost-effective and sustainable solution.
Encouraging beavers to adopt and enhance BDAs taps into their natural dam-building expertise, improving water storage, ecosystem functionality, and resilience to climate-driven impacts. Beaver colonies create patches of wetlands that hold water year-round, augmenting low flows in the summer, and mitigating the effects of drought, floods, and wildfires. Partnering with beavers for watershed management reduces the need for costly infrastructure, making restoration efforts both efficient and sustainable. Beavers are essential to British Columbia’s ecosystems, creating wetlands that support over 80 per cent of wildlife species, improve water quality, and enhance resilience to climate change. Their dams slow and store water, providing critical habitats for species such as salmon and trout.
“During our field work, we’ve come across many areas that show signs of historic beaver activity but without active beavers on site are now in decline,” shared Rogers. “By bringing back the natural ‘disturbance’ created by beavers, the BCWF and its project partners are letting nature take the lead in restoring and maintaining streams.”
BCWF Watershed Team building a BDA alongside a historic beaver dam estimated to be nearly a century old. This headwater stream, part of the Stream Enhancement Project on Sekw’el’was Traditional Territory, was once a thriving beaver wetland. It contains a series of historic channel-spanning dams in various stages of decay.
Using BDAs, the project aimed to mimic past beaver activity, reconnect the floodplain, restore hydrologic connectivity, and create conditions for future beaver establishment. Photo by Emma Kingsland.
Benefits of Beaver-Based Restoration
Mimicking and promoting beaver activity enables BDA project teams to enhance stream complexity, raise the water table to support plant growth, and capture sediment. Additionally, BDA construction is a low-cost approach to wetland and stream restoration and fish habitat enhancement, designed to replicate natural floodplains and ecological processes.
“While many factors are at work, we are bringing back an important piece of the puzzle to help our ecosystems build resilience against the increasing disturbances affecting our watersheds,” shared Rogers.
“Low-tech process-based restoration techniques take a leaf from the beaver’s book,” added Geneva Bahen, BCWF’s Beaver Restoration Assistant. “Beavers are nature’s wetland stewards who have shaped and safeguarded these ecosystems for millennia.”
The BCWF’s LTPBR efforts strive to replicate the essential ecosystem services provided by beaver complexes, offering direct benefits to fish, wildlife, and human communities.
Key benefits of beaver-based restoration include:
- Wildlife Habitat: Beavers build dams that create habitat not just for themselves, but for a variety of species, which is why they are called a “keystone species.” Beaver-created wetlands provide vital habitats for frogs, fish, birds, and bats, offering shelter and foraging areas for young animals to grow and thrive.
- Water Storage: Beaver dams and BDAs store water in the stream and help recharge water tables in adjacent floodplains.
- Improved Water Quality: Beaver dams trap sediment and filter pollutants, resulting in cleaner water downstream.
- Erosion Control: By slowing water velocity, beaver dams reduce erosion and downcutting and help connect streams to their floodplains.
- Resilience to Disturbances: Dams can capture and store water during times of excess, dampening the potential for damaging floods downstream. Stored water is also released slowly throughout the year, boosting water in streams during periods of drought. Because the area around beaver complexes is so wet, they do not burn easily and can provide vital refuge habitat for wildlife in intense wildfires.
- Support for Salmon and Trout: Beaver ponds create ideal slow-water habitat for fish, boosting fish populations along with recreational and commercial fishing opportunities.
“Nature-based solutions promote healthy, dynamic, and resilient ecosystems and are critical to protecting our watersheds for the future,” shared Bahen. “By harnessing the power of reconnected floodplains, LTPBR techniques reduce the risk of destructive flooding and protect vital habitats from soil erosion. Additionally, increasing surface and groundwater storage helps mitigate the risks of drought and fire.”
The Power is in Our Partnerships
With a focus on training and collaboration, the BCWF’s 10,000 Wetlands project team is strengthening partnerships with First Nations, Indigenous-led organizations, NGOs, academic institutions, government agencies, and landowners to build a network of LTPBR practitioners and advance restoration techniques in B.C. These collective efforts are driving momentum and fostering knowledge sharing and capacity building for this essential restoration practice.
“These projects wouldn’t be possible without collaboration with our partners,” shared Rogers. “Often, our partners are local stewards of the land with a much better understanding of the history of the land and how these areas once looked. They offer not only local knowledge but also a genuine dedication to improving their watersheds—whether it’s boosting resilience to floods, droughts, and fires, enhancing fish habitat, or improving forage for wildlife. They care about what is happening on their land and work hard to find ways to help.”
In 2024, our on-site project partners included:
- Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi ‘it (Tobacco Plains Indian Band)
Looking Ahead
BCWF and its partners aim to install at least 100 BDAs by 2026 as part of their broader mission to build a community of practitioners to help restore 10,000 wetlands across the province. Alongside BDAs, the team plans to implement PALS, which mimic natural log jams. Together, these cost-effective, low-tech solutions restore wetlands and riparian habitats, increase habitat complexity, and support wildlife and ecosystems while promoting biodiversity, enhancing watershed resilience, and combating climate change.
For more information about the 10,000 Wetlands Project, visit www.bcwfwatershedteam.ca or contact Jennifer Rogers at jennifer.rogers@bcwf.bc.ca.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial contributions from the Province of B.C. and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy for funding this work in 2023 and 2024. We also express our gratitude to the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program (FWCP) for funding our McIntyre restoration project in 2024 and to the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF) for supporting the initial stages of this work in 2023.
- The Beaver Institute | BeaverCON – 2024
- BCWF staff and partners participated in a conference with academics, restoration practitioners and government staff from around the world to discuss new research, best management practices and restoration techniques involving beaver.
As building BDAs is a relatively new restoration technique in B.C., the BCWF has prioritized equipping our team at every step. Further, as knowledge sharing is a critical aspect of this work our training ensures that we can continue spreading the skills and expertise we acquire, which bolsters broader adoption of these innovative beaver-based restoration techniques.
Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration in Oregon, USA
In June, members of BCWF’s Watershed Team traveled to Bly, Oregon, for a week of intensive training in Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LTPBR). Guided by Kevin Swift and his team at Swift Water Design, along with experts from Trout Unlimited and Nature’s Engineers, the training included site visits in the Klamath Basin to explore project design, regulatory navigation, monitoring, and adaptive management. Each day featured hands-on experience building BDAs for various restoration goals, providing invaluable skills to support BDA installations across B.C. during the summer and fall of 2024.
Why Beavers?
“Beavers, and the restoration work inspired by them, provide important ecosystem benefits that have been lost or damaged over time,” said Rogers.
Before European colonization, beavers thrived in rivers and streams across North America. Early colonial settlers often documented the challenges of navigating dam-laden river systems in their journals. However, the fur trade of the 18th and 19th centuries led to the widespread exploitation of beavers, causing their populations to plummet.
By the 20th century, beavers were extirpated from much of their native range. This loss coincided with human expansion into floodplains, where productive valley-bottom ecosystems were replaced by infrastructure such as roads, farms, and dams. The absence of beavers disrupted the natural balance of ecosystems. Streams became disconnected from their floodplains, landscapes lost their capacity to retain water, and habitats became increasingly degraded. This degradation exacerbated flooding, drought, and erosion, reducing nature’s ability to recover from these disturbances and eroding resilience to future disturbances. Harnessing the water-retention capabilities of beaver dams presents a cost-effective and sustainable solution.
Encouraging beavers to adopt and enhance BDAs taps into their natural dam-building expertise, improving water storage, ecosystem functionality, and resilience to climate-driven impacts. Beaver colonies create patches of wetlands that hold water year-round, augmenting low flows in the summer, and mitigating the effects of drought, floods, and wildfires. Partnering with beavers for watershed management reduces the need for costly infrastructure, making restoration efforts both efficient and sustainable. Beavers are essential to British Columbia’s ecosystems, creating wetlands that support over 80 per cent of wildlife species, improve water quality, and enhance resilience to climate change. Their dams slow and store water, providing critical habitats for species such as salmon and trout.
“During our field work, we’ve come across many areas that show signs of historic beaver activity but without active beavers on site are now in decline,” shared Rogers. “By bringing back the natural ‘disturbance’ created by beavers, the BCWF and its project partners are letting nature take the lead in restoring and maintaining streams.”
BCWF Watershed Team building a BDA alongside a historic beaver dam estimated to be nearly a century old. This headwater stream, part of the Stream Enhancement Project on Sekw’el’was Traditional Territory, was once a thriving beaver wetland. It contains a series of historic channel-spanning dams in various stages of decay.
Using BDAs, the project aimed to mimic past beaver activity, reconnect the floodplain, restore hydrologic connectivity, and create conditions for future beaver establishment. Photo by Emma Kingsland.
Benefits of Beaver-Based Restoration
Mimicking and promoting beaver activity enables BDA project teams to enhance stream complexity, raise the water table to support plant growth, and capture sediment. Additionally, BDA construction is a low-cost approach to wetland and stream restoration and fish habitat enhancement, designed to replicate natural floodplains and ecological processes.
“While many factors are at work, we are bringing back an important piece of the puzzle to help our ecosystems build resilience against the increasing disturbances affecting our watersheds,” shared Rogers.
“Low-tech process-based restoration techniques take a leaf from the beaver’s book,” added Geneva Bahen, BCWF’s Beaver Restoration Assistant. “Beavers are nature’s wetland stewards who have shaped and safeguarded these ecosystems for millennia.”
The BCWF’s LTPBR efforts strive to replicate the essential ecosystem services provided by beaver complexes, offering direct benefits to fish, wildlife, and human communities.
Key benefits of beaver-based restoration include:
- Wildlife Habitat: Beavers build dams that create habitat not just for themselves, but for a variety of species, which is why they are called a “keystone species.” Beaver-created wetlands provide vital habitats for frogs, fish, birds, and bats, offering shelter and foraging areas for young animals to grow and thrive.
- Water Storage: Beaver dams and BDAs store water in the stream and help recharge water tables in adjacent floodplains.
- Improved Water Quality: Beaver dams trap sediment and filter pollutants, resulting in cleaner water downstream.
- Erosion Control: By slowing water velocity, beaver dams reduce erosion and downcutting and help connect streams to their floodplains.
- Resilience to Disturbances: Dams can capture and store water during times of excess, dampening the potential for damaging floods downstream. Stored water is also released slowly throughout the year, boosting water in streams during periods of drought. Because the area around beaver complexes is so wet, they do not burn easily and can provide vital refuge habitat for wildlife in intense wildfires.
- Support for Salmon and Trout: Beaver ponds create ideal slow-water habitat for fish, boosting fish populations along with recreational and commercial fishing opportunities.
“Nature-based solutions promote healthy, dynamic, and resilient ecosystems and are critical to protecting our watersheds for the future,” shared Bahen. “By harnessing the power of reconnected floodplains, LTPBR techniques reduce the risk of destructive flooding and protect vital habitats from soil erosion. Additionally, increasing surface and groundwater storage helps mitigate the risks of drought and fire.”
The Power is in Our Partnerships
With a focus on training and collaboration, the BCWF’s 10,000 Wetlands project team is strengthening partnerships with First Nations, Indigenous-led organizations, NGOs, academic institutions, government agencies, and landowners to build a network of LTPBR practitioners and advance restoration techniques in B.C. These collective efforts are driving momentum and fostering knowledge sharing and capacity building for this essential restoration practice.
“These projects wouldn’t be possible without collaboration with our partners,” shared Rogers. “Often, our partners are local stewards of the land with a much better understanding of the history of the land and how these areas once looked. They offer not only local knowledge but also a genuine dedication to improving their watersheds—whether it’s boosting resilience to floods, droughts, and fires, enhancing fish habitat, or improving forage for wildlife. They care about what is happening on their land and work hard to find ways to help.”
In 2024, our on-site project partners included:
- Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi ‘it (Tobacco Plains Indian Band)
Looking Ahead
BCWF and its partners aim to install at least 100 BDAs by 2026 as part of their broader mission to build a community of practitioners to help restore 10,000 wetlands across the province. Alongside BDAs, the team plans to implement PALS, which mimic natural log jams. Together, these cost-effective, low-tech solutions restore wetlands and riparian habitats, increase habitat complexity, and support wildlife and ecosystems while promoting biodiversity, enhancing watershed resilience, and combating climate change.
For more information about the 10,000 Wetlands Project, visit www.bcwfwatershedteam.ca or contact Jennifer Rogers at jennifer.rogers@bcwf.bc.ca.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial contributions from the Province of B.C. and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy for funding this work in 2023 and 2024. We also express our gratitude to the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program (FWCP) for funding our McIntyre restoration project in 2024 and to the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF) for supporting the initial stages of this work in 2023.
- The Beaver Institute | BeaverCON – 2024
- BCWF staff and partners participated in a conference with academics, restoration practitioners and government staff from around the world to discuss new research, best management practices and restoration techniques involving beaver.
As building BDAs is a relatively new restoration technique in B.C., the BCWF has prioritized equipping our team at every step. Further, as knowledge sharing is a critical aspect of this work our training ensures that we can continue spreading the skills and expertise we acquire, which bolsters broader adoption of these innovative beaver-based restoration techniques.
Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration in Oregon, USA
In June, members of BCWF’s Watershed Team traveled to Bly, Oregon, for a week of intensive training in Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LTPBR). Guided by Kevin Swift and his team at Swift Water Design, along with experts from Trout Unlimited and Nature’s Engineers, the training included site visits in the Klamath Basin to explore project design, regulatory navigation, monitoring, and adaptive management. Each day featured hands-on experience building BDAs for various restoration goals, providing invaluable skills to support BDA installations across B.C. during the summer and fall of 2024.
Why Beavers?
“Beavers, and the restoration work inspired by them, provide important ecosystem benefits that have been lost or damaged over time,” said Rogers.
Before European colonization, beavers thrived in rivers and streams across North America. Early colonial settlers often documented the challenges of navigating dam-laden river systems in their journals. However, the fur trade of the 18th and 19th centuries led to the widespread exploitation of beavers, causing their populations to plummet.
By the 20th century, beavers were extirpated from much of their native range. This loss coincided with human expansion into floodplains, where productive valley-bottom ecosystems were replaced by infrastructure such as roads, farms, and dams. The absence of beavers disrupted the natural balance of ecosystems. Streams became disconnected from their floodplains, landscapes lost their capacity to retain water, and habitats became increasingly degraded. This degradation exacerbated flooding, drought, and erosion, reducing nature’s ability to recover from these disturbances and eroding resilience to future disturbances. Harnessing the water-retention capabilities of beaver dams presents a cost-effective and sustainable solution.
Encouraging beavers to adopt and enhance BDAs taps into their natural dam-building expertise, improving water storage, ecosystem functionality, and resilience to climate-driven impacts. Beaver colonies create patches of wetlands that hold water year-round, augmenting low flows in the summer, and mitigating the effects of drought, floods, and wildfires. Partnering with beavers for watershed management reduces the need for costly infrastructure, making restoration efforts both efficient and sustainable. Beavers are essential to British Columbia’s ecosystems, creating wetlands that support over 80 per cent of wildlife species, improve water quality, and enhance resilience to climate change. Their dams slow and store water, providing critical habitats for species such as salmon and trout.
“During our field work, we’ve come across many areas that show signs of historic beaver activity but without active beavers on site are now in decline,” shared Rogers. “By bringing back the natural ‘disturbance’ created by beavers, the BCWF and its project partners are letting nature take the lead in restoring and maintaining streams.”
BCWF Watershed Team building a BDA alongside a historic beaver dam estimated to be nearly a century old. This headwater stream, part of the Stream Enhancement Project on Sekw’el’was Traditional Territory, was once a thriving beaver wetland. It contains a series of historic channel-spanning dams in various stages of decay.
Using BDAs, the project aimed to mimic past beaver activity, reconnect the floodplain, restore hydrologic connectivity, and create conditions for future beaver establishment. Photo by Emma Kingsland.
Benefits of Beaver-Based Restoration
Mimicking and promoting beaver activity enables BDA project teams to enhance stream complexity, raise the water table to support plant growth, and capture sediment. Additionally, BDA construction is a low-cost approach to wetland and stream restoration and fish habitat enhancement, designed to replicate natural floodplains and ecological processes.
“While many factors are at work, we are bringing back an important piece of the puzzle to help our ecosystems build resilience against the increasing disturbances affecting our watersheds,” shared Rogers.
“Low-tech process-based restoration techniques take a leaf from the beaver’s book,” added Geneva Bahen, BCWF’s Beaver Restoration Assistant. “Beavers are nature’s wetland stewards who have shaped and safeguarded these ecosystems for millennia.”
The BCWF’s LTPBR efforts strive to replicate the essential ecosystem services provided by beaver complexes, offering direct benefits to fish, wildlife, and human communities.
Key benefits of beaver-based restoration include:
- Wildlife Habitat: Beavers build dams that create habitat not just for themselves, but for a variety of species, which is why they are called a “keystone species.” Beaver-created wetlands provide vital habitats for frogs, fish, birds, and bats, offering shelter and foraging areas for young animals to grow and thrive.
- Water Storage: Beaver dams and BDAs store water in the stream and help recharge water tables in adjacent floodplains.
- Improved Water Quality: Beaver dams trap sediment and filter pollutants, resulting in cleaner water downstream.
- Erosion Control: By slowing water velocity, beaver dams reduce erosion and downcutting and help connect streams to their floodplains.
- Resilience to Disturbances: Dams can capture and store water during times of excess, dampening the potential for damaging floods downstream. Stored water is also released slowly throughout the year, boosting water in streams during periods of drought. Because the area around beaver complexes is so wet, they do not burn easily and can provide vital refuge habitat for wildlife in intense wildfires.
- Support for Salmon and Trout: Beaver ponds create ideal slow-water habitat for fish, boosting fish populations along with recreational and commercial fishing opportunities.
“Nature-based solutions promote healthy, dynamic, and resilient ecosystems and are critical to protecting our watersheds for the future,” shared Bahen. “By harnessing the power of reconnected floodplains, LTPBR techniques reduce the risk of destructive flooding and protect vital habitats from soil erosion. Additionally, increasing surface and groundwater storage helps mitigate the risks of drought and fire.”
The Power is in Our Partnerships
With a focus on training and collaboration, the BCWF’s 10,000 Wetlands project team is strengthening partnerships with First Nations, Indigenous-led organizations, NGOs, academic institutions, government agencies, and landowners to build a network of LTPBR practitioners and advance restoration techniques in B.C. These collective efforts are driving momentum and fostering knowledge sharing and capacity building for this essential restoration practice.
“These projects wouldn’t be possible without collaboration with our partners,” shared Rogers. “Often, our partners are local stewards of the land with a much better understanding of the history of the land and how these areas once looked. They offer not only local knowledge but also a genuine dedication to improving their watersheds—whether it’s boosting resilience to floods, droughts, and fires, enhancing fish habitat, or improving forage for wildlife. They care about what is happening on their land and work hard to find ways to help.”
In 2024, our on-site project partners included:
- Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi ‘it (Tobacco Plains Indian Band)
Looking Ahead
BCWF and its partners aim to install at least 100 BDAs by 2026 as part of their broader mission to build a community of practitioners to help restore 10,000 wetlands across the province. Alongside BDAs, the team plans to implement PALS, which mimic natural log jams. Together, these cost-effective, low-tech solutions restore wetlands and riparian habitats, increase habitat complexity, and support wildlife and ecosystems while promoting biodiversity, enhancing watershed resilience, and combating climate change.
For more information about the 10,000 Wetlands Project, visit www.bcwfwatershedteam.ca or contact Jennifer Rogers at jennifer.rogers@bcwf.bc.ca.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial contributions from the Province of B.C. and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy for funding this work in 2023 and 2024. We also express our gratitude to the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program (FWCP) for funding our McIntyre restoration project in 2024 and to the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF) for supporting the initial stages of this work in 2023.