Photo: Frans Van Heerden | Pexels
It's ironic that beavers are moving back, because the removal of two human-built dams in the US's Pacific Northwest, the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams, made it possible. It was the world's largest such project to date. The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe always had standing to challenge the dams, but not until it reached out to the public did it get support for removing them. Despite some setbacks, restoration of the landscape has made great progress and so have the salmon. In essence, by ceding their land to settlers, the tribe's ancestors made it possible for their descendants to have harvestable fish today, and the dams that prevented their fishing gave them legal standing to bring them down.
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