In March 2024, we visited a vibrant beaver enclosure at Poole Farm, Plymouth to learn more about how the City Council is partnering with Livewell Southwest and using beavers as part of a unique ecotherapy programme for children and young people experiencing mental health challenges.
Poole Farm is run by Plymouth City Council (PCC) and is a community farm at the centre of Derriford Community Park, sandwiched between five different neighbourhoods in the north of the city. Until recently, the farm was in private ownership with no public access, but now its focus is community involvement through health and wellbeing, education and conservation – all while still being a working farm.
In October 2023, a pair of beavers were released into the newly strengthened enclosure at Poole Farm. The Green Minds beaver project, a Plymouth Council initiative, began in November 2020 and had two key aims:
- Explore the health benefits of connecting residents to nature, through community engagement,
- Study the beavers’ impact on reducing flooding downstream and habitat creation in Bircham Valley aligning with Plymouth Council objectives of flood reduction and climate resilience.
“Bringing beavers back to Plymouth was an ambitious project for the Council and part of our city-wide Green Minds initiative to ‘re-wild people and places’. Having urban beavers on the doorstep brings opportunities including reduced flooding, enhanced biodiversity and education opportunities,” said Jerry Griffiths, Natural Infrastructure Officer for Plymouth City Council. “Since their arrival, we have teamed up with Livewell Southwest and are seeing first-hand the positive effects that beaver ecotherapy can play as an early intervention for young people with mental health challenges.”
Beavers are hard-working, resilient creatures and Tom Maguire, eco-therapy lead with Livewell encourages young people to self-reflect and relate to the positivity of the beaver’s behaviour in their own lives. “Just watching beavers and being amongst the ponds and wetlands is so relaxing that our groups report feeling calm with reduced stress and anxiety.”
Ecotherapy in beaver wetlands
Beaver wetlands have been shown to reduce stress, elevate moods and increase a feeling of connection to wildlife and nature which is becoming increasingly important for people.
Ecotherapy, which can be described as a facilitated therapeutic intervention based in a natural setting, using nature as a therapist, aims to provide an intervention for children and young people experiencing mild to moderate emotional and mental wellbeing difficulties. So an opportunity to establish beaver wetlands in an urban context so close to large numbers of people is significant.
Spending time in a beaver wetland can be a soothing yet rejuvenating experience; the air is fresh and often filled with birdsong, the water is tranquil yet teeming with life and wildlife thrives in the surrounding landscape. They’re dynamic, natural and wild, and it’s this feeling that the team at Poole Farm is hoping to explore.
They are developing a programme that leverages nature-based activities to try to improve mental health and wellbeing, while also boosting resilience and equipping participants with skills and coping mechanisms for the future. Additionally, it aims to provide a route for them to develop a new relationship with the natural world, with beavers and the wetlands they create playing a central role. After just six group sessions, participants are encouraged to use their newfound relationship-building skills and join in with other PCC nature-based youth club activities.
“When the young people first step over the threshold into the beaver enclosure at Poole Farm we encourage them to start relying on their senses to attune to the natural world around them, as an animal might,” says Tom Maguire, CAMHS Eco-Therapy Lead from Livewell Southwest. “This helps them to draw their attention away from internal thinking which is often troubling and ruminative and towards open spaces full of beauty and fascination.”
“As we approach the beaver habitat, we consider how a very small animal can have such a big and positive impact on its environment, inviting new life and growth to coexist alongside them.” The metaphor here is that the young people may feel small in themselves but that there is a place for everyone in the world and that they, too, are important. The group spends time ‘beaver spotting’ in the enclosure which involves sitting on a bank alongside the beaver pool in the evening and watching for movement on the water. “They observe young people sitting in silence or in whispered conversation just watching the surface of the water; they are calm, relaxed and their attention is externally focused,” Maguire recalls. “They are in the ‘here and now’ which is a key component of mindfulness.”
During another of the six weekly group sessions, participants explore the beaver enclosure, discussing how one animal can create such significant change and delving into their resilience and perseverance in building an environment that benefits other wildlife. They’ll be prompted to notice the biodiversity changes as the weeks go on and actively measure water quality by net sampling, building a deeper connection with the natural environment. Teenagers are taught how to set up wildlife cameras and check back over the weeks to see what interesting beaver behaviour they have captured.
Young people visiting often have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), affecting their ability to learn in the classroom setting. A key focus of the team is early onset anxiety and depression, using these sessions as an early intervention to divert outcomes before CAMHS involvement. As the weeks progress, young people are coached on how to get out of their heads and connect with nature, with the ultimate goal of leading to mental health resilience and the normalisation of being outside among wildlife.
“Contact and connection with nature is critical for good mental health but is an often neglected area within CAMHS,” says Dr Catriona Mellor, CAMHS specialist. “Inspiring projects like this have benefits on so many levels; improving population mental health whilst restoring natural resources and resilience. Cross-sector innovation like this, particularly in urban settings, is needed now more than ever.”
The power of beaver wetlands
Due to its urban location, the project acts as a window on the benefit of beavers and there are a large number of other groups now using the space, showcasing the diversity of engagement with beaver wetlands. University wellbeing tours aptly named ‘Gnaw and Explore Beaver Tours’ take place, as well as work placements and ecological monitoring including a five-year hydrological study in collaboration with the University of Exeter.
A recent report from the study has shown how beavers and natural flood management have reduced peak flow in this urban river catchment by 23%. It is hoped that the mounting evidence base for the benefits of beavers will inspire further national movement on the return of beavers across Britain.
Beavers’ gradual return to the wild tends to elicit much talk of the potential for flood and drought mitigation, and their impressive ability to boost biodiversity through habitat modification. However, this foundation for affecting human mental health and wellbeing is often overlooked. Our visit to Poole Farm was uplifting and inspiring, offering real hope for nature’s recovery and, more importantly, our involvement, learning and reconnection alongside that. Immersion in beaver wetlands can offer sanctuary and recovery, and this therapeutic effect is becoming increasingly important for all. As beaver populations expand across Britain, we hope more communities take the opportunity to take inspiration from them.
