Beavers
Program Overview
Beavers are a keystone species throughout North America, creating and sustaining wetland habitats that support a rich diversity of plant and animal life. Dam-building and other ecosystem services they provide to wetlands and streams lead to clear economic and ecological benefits including restored salmon runs, decreased flooding severity, wildfire refugia and buffers, and improved aquatic habitat. Importantly, beavers provide incalculable benefits for Tribal subsistence.
By slowing, sinking, spreading, and storing water, beavers support fish, agriculture, and recreation, reducing costs otherwise spent on mitigation. They strengthen ecosystems against the growing threats of drought, wildfire, and flooding. Their presence improves water quality, enhances biodiversity, and offers a nature-based solution to some of our most pressing environmental challenges.
Supporting beaver populations—and the habitats they help build—is a smart, science-backed strategy for a more resilient and vibrant future.
Strategies
Support Indigenous leadership whose ecological knowledge, healing practices, and restoration solutions inform organizations working to help beavers thrive. Our support advances their beaver strategies and policies on Tribal and ancestral lands, and beyond.
Invest in field-building, beaver working groups, and restoration projects that influence regional, state, and federal policies and programs to advance living with beavers through conflict mitigation strategies.
Counter the erroneous perception of beavers as a nuisance and build support for beaver-based habitat restoration projects that leverage the role of beavers for climate adaptation and resilience.
Recent Grantees
Occidental Arts and Ecology (OAEC)
Project support for OAEC’s Water Institute to play a leadership role to advance California’s Beaver Coexistence and Support Program. They will help the state develop and implement their new Beaver Management Plan and advance their holistic approach to beavers that includes co-existence, enhancement, relocation, and mimicry.
Methow Beaver Project
Core support for the Methow Beaver Project, which partners with beavers to restore degraded stream systems, store water naturally for a drier and hotter future, and improve the function, sustainability, resilience, and biodiversity in their watersheds.
Yurok Tribe
Project support for The Yurok Tribe to implement tribal-led, process-based restoration to support improved ecological function and native fish recovery within Lower Klamath tributaries. This grant also supports green workforce training and employment, participation in expanded learning and networks, and coordination to improve understanding of Indigenous restoration.
Greater Hells Canyon Council
Project support for coordination of the NE Oregon Beaver Coexistence Working Group to develop a Beaver Action Plan, provide outreach and education, engage volunteers and landowners, and participate in greater planning efforts within the region.
Beavers Northwest (BNW)
Core support for BNW, which strives to increase acceptance and understanding of beavers to support healthier and more resilient ecosystems. By encouraging and implementing nonlethal, in-place management solutions, BNW ensures the ecosystem services provided by beavers are maintained.
Western Environmental Law Center (WELC)
Core support to further beaver-based habitat restoration and beaver co-existence through policy advocacy, collaboration, and coalition building.
Connect With Us
Grants for the Beaver Program are made three times annually. Proposals by invitation only. The Beaver program currently focuses on organizations and tribes based in the US.
