Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the reintroduction of beavers to the wild on meeting targets on halting the decline in species abundance by 2030 as set under the Environment Act 2021.

This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.

No direct assessment of beavers’ impact on the species abundance target has been conducted but we continue to improve our evidence base underpinning the targets more broadly.

However, evidence demonstrates that beavers can boost biodiversity and create and restore wetland habitats. A 2020 evidence review of the interaction between beavers and the natural and human environments found that beaver reintroductions can bring many benefits by helping to restore lost natural ecosystem function. Therefore, beaver reintroductions could contribute to broad ambitions to restore biodiversity, through the restoration of more naturally functioning habitat mosaics, benefitting many species.

Beaver populations in England are currently small, so any positive impact on biodiversity and species abundance will be spatially limited.