Nature's Architect

Nature’s Architect
The beaver's return to our wild landscapes
by Jim Crumley
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781910192061
 
Hundreds of years after their extinction in these isles, beavers are back. These skilled engineers of the natural world have been introduced at several sites across the UK, with new trials planned. Even as they become established, they are having a dramatic effect on our wild landscapes. Here, leading nature writer Jim Crumley reveals the lifestyle of these intriguing creatures and considers the ecological and economic impact of the beaver reintroductions. Employing his trademark beautiful prose and empathy for life in the wild, Crumley considers the future for Britain’s beavers and makes the case for giving them their freedom despite their controversial status.
 
REVIEWS OF NATURE’S ARCHITECT
'Crumley conveys the feelings involved... the excitement, the joy, the wonder of the natural world at its wildest with honesty and passion.' - Susan Mansfield, Scottish Review of Books.
 
Jim Crumley is the author of more than forty books, mostly on the wildlife and wild landscape of his native Scotland, many of them making the case for species reintroductions, or ‘rewilding’. His Seasons series, a quartet of books exploring the wildlife and landscapes and how climate change is affecting our environment across the four seasons, is highly acclaimed.  The Nature of Autumn was longlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2017 and shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Society and White Horse Bookshop Literary Prize 2017. The third in the series, The Nature of Spring, was Radio 4’s Book of the Week. The Nature of Summer, was shortlisted for the 2021 Highland Book Prize. The Eagle’s Way was shortlisted for a prestigious Saltire Society award, and his Encounters in the Wild series – which sees Jim get up close and personal with Britain’s favourite animals – has found him many new readers. He has written about the return of the beaver to the UK’s wetlands in Nature’s Architect, and his most recent title is Lakeland Wild, his first to focus entirely on an English landscape. Lakeland Wild was longlisted for the 2022 Lakeland Book of the Year prize. Jim is also a poet, an occasional broadcaster on both radio and television and a widely published journalist who wrote columns for the Dundee Courier for many years and has a monthly column in The Scots Magazine.
The Seasons quartet is now available in one handsome hardback edition, Seasons of Storm and Wonder.