Beaver management – important issue in sustainable forestry (Video)

Here is an interesting video about beavers and how the beaver can (or can’t) live together with humans and our forestry business. It’s from the  European Union development project WAMBAF (Water Management in Baltic Forests). In the Scandinavian countries and the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) the beavers were more or less exterminated during the 1900 century because of the valuable fur. But beavers have been successfully reintroduced in these area again in the beginning of the 2000 century. Today there are dense populations in many places within this region and the beaver is a natural part of the fauna and wildlife in the forest landscape all over this area.

Beaver landscaping

The beavers are good at recreating the landscape and to make “waterscapes”. From time to time this create conflicts with the forestry sector. Damming and plugged ditches cause flooding which can kill surrounding forest. But beavers also create valuable biotopes for many other species. This nice video is produced by the EU-project and it shows some examples from Latvia and Lithuania of how forestry and beavers can coexist.