Presentation short abstract

This paper describes the reintroduction of beavers to a site in London as a form of prefigurative urban ecological politics. We argue the it evidences a novel form of urban conservation, that forges forge new (re)wilded (human and nonhuman) citizens, and reworks the ambit of the local state.

Presentation long abstract

Beavers have emerged as the flagship species for rewilding in Britain. Legal and illegal releases across the British countryside have driven rapid increases in their population and range and, with this proliferation, it is widely anticipated that beavers will soon colonise British cities as they have elsewhere in Europe. Hundreds of wild beavers now live in the landscape surrounding the capital city. This growing population is expected to expand and establish in London’s waterways in the not–too-distant future. In anticipation of this re-beavered urban future, Citizen Zoo seeks to prepare Londoners to welcome the rodent’s imminent return. At Paradise Fields in Ealing, west London, they have designed and staged a high-profile experiment in how to live well with beavers in an urban environment. In this paper, we argue that the Ealing Beaver Project evidences a new type of prefigurative urban ecological politics that leverages encounters with urban wildlife to forge new (re)wilded (human and nonhuman) citizens, and experiment with new forms of urban wildlife management. This intervention is developed through repurposing the ambit of the local state, what we term as municipal wilds. Prefigurative urban ecological politics describes political programmes that summon the future to anticipate and nurture desired configurations of urban socio-ecological relations in the present. The paper develops a conceptual framework for studying this new mode of urban rewilding and then deploys it to critically analyse beaver reintroduction in London.