Who Needs Dam Bureaucracy?

This story out of the Czech Republic sounds more like a fable than reality or something you'd hear in the news, and that's exactly why I wanted to share it with you. And while fables typically end with some sort of moral lesson, I'm actually going to start with the lesson: Red tape and government bureaucracy are an unnatural part of life. Then again, if you're reading this, you probably already know that. 

The Klabava River, which sits about 50 miles southwest of Prague, the nation's capital, originates in the Brdy Highlands, flows through the Plzeň and Central Bohemian regions of the country, and enters the Berounka River in Oslov. At some point in time, some of the land along the river had been a military training area. 

Sometime before 2018, concerns were raised about the health of the water and animals in that area. Not only is the river home to critically endangered crayfish, but sediment and acidic water were also spilling into it from nearby ponds, wreaking havoc on the water quality and hurting the local wildlife. Conservationists wanted to build a dam or barrier on the river that would protect the area, as well as a few smaller dams that would allow water to spill over and create a "nature-rich wetland." 

In 2018 — seven years ago — a building permit was issued for this project, but it was delayed due to, well, red tape and government bureaucracy. However, sometime in January of this year, an official visited the land and couldn't believe his eyes. It looked like someone had completed the project, seemingly overnight. Had the government gotten its act together and gone to work that quickly?  

Not quite. Beavers did it. And the results were perfect. 

I have this great image in my head of a bunch of stuffy government officials in suits sitting in a room arguing back and forth over this project, while a family of beavers sits outside the window, looks at each other incredulously, and gets right to work.  

According to Bohumil Fišer, head of the Brdy Protected Landscape Area from the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic, "Nature took its course and the beavers created the necessary biotope conditions practically overnight." 

The area is said to be twice the size of the original project but roughly follows the same plan, down to the smaller dams the conservationists wanted to build. "They built a wetland with pools and canals," Fišer said. 

It's estimated that the beavers saved taxpayers the equivalent of about $1.25 million USD. Even better, the dams will likely create an area where wildlife will thrive and can eventually be turned into a park for locals and tourists to visit. 

According to National Geographic, beavers use rocks, mud, sticks, and other items to dam up waterways, which creates a concentrated habitat for numerous other species, ranging from insects and fish to birds and large mammals, like bison. The beavers use the area to find food and protect themselves from predators. Scientists often refer to beavers as "ecosystem engineers" because they "modify their environment and make resources available that wouldn’t be otherwise." 

And it's not the first time something like this has happened. In Oregon, "beavers built dams on the property of a large, multimillion-dollar stormwater treatment facility. When scientists looked more closely, they learned that the animals were able to filter out heavy metals and other pollutants about twice as well as the human-built structure."  

It all kind of makes me think we need to pay less attention to government blowhards who want to overcomplicate things and more to the ways of the natural world.