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The complexity in the ground beneath us is quite simply astounding, and it's often missed by most. More than half of life on Earth lives in soil. It is sometimes just considered dirt with no real value, but a spoonful of soil contains billions of living organisms, more organisms than humans on Earth. So, why should we care about soil? Well, soil is the foundation of the green world around us; it can help with climate resilience and support the population with nutritious food. As a collective, we don't currently look after our soils, and the biggest threat is agriculture. Soils are continuously degraded and stripped of nutrients for arable production, compacted and eroded by livestock and machinery. Most have likely heard some information flying around that we only have a set number of harvests left in the land, such as 60 years' worth, and while these are unfounded statistics, they do however, hold some truth. For if we do not care for soil, it will cease to support us.

This is the sciencey part: Soil's composition is 50% minerals (sand, silt and clay), 25% water, 15% air and less than 10% organic matter, anywhere in the world. When soil is mistreated, i.e. compacted or cultivated, it loses its fundamental composition, damaging its soil structure, which leads to a negative chain reaction. Topsoil is formed by a symphony of life over a long period of time. When Charles Darwin documented in 1881 the function of earthworms building topsoil, he calculated that earthworms move 10 to 15 tons of soil per acre to the surface every year, slowly raising the ground level. The natural formation of topsoil can take anywhere up to 1000 years to create a single centimeter of fertile soil. Now, this is the poignant part because it's estimated that we lose the equivalent of 30 football pitches of fertile soil every minute. Healthy topsoil, which often looks like chocolate cake (but definitely doesn't taste like it!), has uniform aggregation as mycorrhizal fungi secrete glomalin (soil glue) to build soil aggregates. This is important as soil works like a sponge, allowing water and air to feed the processes building it. Organic matter (carbon) controls 90% of soil functions related to plant growth. Soils high in organic matter can hold more magnesium, calcium, and potassium, which are essential for plant growth and in unison with biological activity, will have more availability of other nutrients including phosphorus and nitrogen. Sadly, organic matter is being lost due to intensive agricultural practices and land disturbance, such as plowing and cultivating. This accelerates microbial respiration and consumes organic matter, turning it into carbon dioxide and thus releasing it into the atmosphere. Along with monocultures and chemical use, the current agricultural model is not sustainable.

Regenerative agriculture, however, is very much sustainable. It's growing in popularity, and if you strip away the buzzword, it is the practice of building soil rather than depleting it in a natural cycle. Regenerative agriculture has 5 core principles: minimise soil disturbance, keep the soil covered, maintain living roots, increase plant diversity, and introduce livestock. These principles mimic the way in which organisms have evolved, and unsurprisingly result in healthier ecosystems, crops, livestock, and you guessed it, healthier soil. The way in which plants grow and utilise the soil is not a simple uptake of soil nutrients with their roots, but rather a complex trade of sugars to bacteria and fungi around the roots, which in turn source and make minerals available to the plants, like nitrogen. The current farming model generally relies on not using any of the principles above, although that is changing as more farmers adopt better measures to look after the soil. And it's probably down to time, the thing most of us never have enough of. It's not a quick process to go from conventional practices to a regenerative approach, as the soil is so unbalanced and void of life. It is often quite impossible for farms to lose the income that switching practices would incur for a transition period. This is because synthetic fertilisers are spread on the land in vast quantities due to there not being enough biological activity in the soil to provide the nutrients. There is depleted biological activity as farmers rely on chemical use such as pesticides and herbicides to try to guarantee a successful crop, as the financial inputs are so large. The outcome of the model is that farmers are in a loop of necessity that's damaging our soils and unable to change without help from government-funded sustainable farming incentives. You may have seen in news articles the previous week that the entire £253 million budget was allocated in just 6 hours of opening due to high demand and resulted in thousands of farmers missing out. The only solution being, this budget needs to increase.

Soil is mind blowing, only 1% of microorganisms found in soil have been identified. They are the largest reservoirs of microbial diversity on Earth. Soils store more carbon than the atmosphere and all of the world's plants and forests combined. I play a part in protecting and benefiting the soil that supports us by making sustainable food choices such as organic vegetables and meat, where soil health is key. When you include personal health, with 48% of all conventional food in the UK containing some form of pesticide residue, it makes choosing options better for the planet easier. There are some incredible inventive solutions to many of the issues discussed, from beetle pizza box bombs for natural pest control to community based food networks. Indeed, the future for our soils is hopeful. I implore you to try a few soil health building tasks: try not to cut your grass in times of dry weather and see the green grass last far longer than your neighbours, and maybe swap out a couple of food items to sustainable options. It is not one person's actions that change depends on, it is the collective action of communities to strive for a healthier future, one (non-compacting) step at a time.

Perhaps it is C.S. Lewis' fault for creating a world in which beavers eat fish, or the bonkers idea that beavers cause floods (quite the contrary). Regardless of people's misjudgements, I'm on a mission to help change the public perception of these remarkable creatures.

Beavers have an innate skill set to control the flow of water and completely transform their surroundings. A beaver wetland evolves in a natural cycle of harvesting and growth where they utilise their surroundings from a space that's run its course and move upriver. The benefits of beaver wetlands to other species are far too enormous to fit into a blog, and there are many books that would do it better justice than this, so I will leave it at the fact that they're keystone species. A very cool term which essentially means they directly (and positively) benefit the life around them.

Beavers were still present in the UK until the 16th century, when they were hunted to extinction for their fur, meat and castoreum. It can be hard to imagine how different our countryside would have looked with these rodents performing their duties, but when you observe their work you start to realise how anthropocentric the land around us has become. Historically, our countryside would have been a far wetter place of bogs, fens and floodplains. To further state their importance, around 40% of all plants and animals on earth live and breed in wetlands. However, humans have drained the land as far back as 9000 years ago to harness the fertility in wet land, and since the 17th century we have systematically engineered farmland into square fields. We've further implemented countless clay drainage pipes which lead to ditches carrying water away as fast as possible (a resource we can't get enough of in summer!). Yet, there are few beaver champions making a beaver return possible. They can be found in multiple locations, both wild and captive across the country. And there are an estimated 3,500 to 4,000 beavers in the UK at present, and with the addition of wild release licences being granted as of 2025, the future looks very hopeful.

A few beaver facts:

• Beavers are entirely herbivorous and eat the bark, twigs and foliage of trees, shrubs and aquatic plants.

• They are most at home in the water and have two layers of fur to trap air and stay warm in freezing temperatures, among other physiological adaptations.

• A beaver wetland can store 12x more carbon than a dry meadow.

• Beavers have orange teeth due to the high iron content needed for chewing wood.

• Castoreum ( a gland secretion) has been traditionally used in perfumes and food flavouring as it supposedly has a vanilla scent.

The sheer value of these creatures cannot be understated when it comes to how they will make our future brighter. A beaver wetland acts as a natural filter, decreasing pollutants and contaminants. They have even been found to contain denitrifying bacteria due to the cellulose rich, low oxygen mud, causing the bacteria to feed on the artificial nitrates that are often found in our rivers from synthetic fertiliser field runoff. When beavers build dams and slow the water, not only is the water pooled across a floodplain, it is forced underground into the soil and aquifers. This benefits the waterways by filtering and cooling the water where it is stored and released in times of drought to maintain constant flow and a healthy ecosystem for the other river inhabitants.

Where I live in the Teign Valley in Devon, we are fairly close to wild beaver populations in the Otter catchment (and these are most likely the result of illegal releases/escapes). The way in which beavers have become present again in England is a combination of campaigning effort and an avoidance of red tape, but for the time being it seems to be working. I started my conservation career at Ewhurst Park, where the first beavers in Hampshire for 400 years were released into a captive breeding enclosure. Multiple generations of kits have been born since, and some have gone on to licensed wild releases in Cornwall. I have been lucky enough to work on a project on the River Otter to create a more beaver friendly water way with the West Country Rivers Trust. The day after I had coppiced a long overdue alder stand around a pond, I spotted a beaver swimming in the water that was quite happily feeding on the brash which had been felled. The rewards were instant. Yes, the beavers would have performed that task in time left to their own devices; however, there is always a human element to be considered when welcoming beavers back into the landscape.

Careful consideration of where to invite back these guys is obviously needed. Of course, you couldn't just put them into the middle of a city and leave them to it. Perhaps human made beaver imitation dams will have to suffice. Working with nature to solve current issues is a far better option than working against it. Our landscape and nature have evolved with these animals for the last 30 million years, so I think it makes far more sense to trust in their abilities. I would highly recommend visiting a beaver residence and be astounded at their craft, and maybe tell a friend the odd beaver fact. Here's to hoping they may become a regular occurrence for future generations to see.