Britain’s biodiversity has been declining sharply over the last 50 years. The country is now one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world. Despite legislation and efforts to stem the tide of wildlife population decline, little has helped.

In February 2025, the UK government announced a new approach to reintroductions of beavers in England. The animals’ dam-building helps maintain wetlands and dissipate floods. But they are not nature’s only green engineers. Looming above the charming rodents are bison, whose grazing can help maintain biodiverse woodlands. In this episode, originally aired in 2023, we look at a project to make use of this behaviour.

Some Wildlife Trusts and organisations now support a more nature based approach to wildlife and land management. Rewilding is the process of helping nature return to its natural state and one of the best ways of doing that is by letting big animals do the job of wildlife managers.

In Kent, in the Summer of 2022, a family of European Bison, the first to roam wildly in the UK for thousands of years, were released into the Blean Woods. The hope is as they move through the woods, they will interact with the environment around them creating better, more livable habitats for the entire ecosystem.

It’s also not just Bison, across the UK species that once lived here are being returned to see if they can play a role in managing and improving this island’s depleted wildlife.

Guests

Paul Hadaway. Kent Wildlife Trust

Sara King, Rewilding Manager, Rewilding Britain

Resources

For more on the Bison reintroduction project, click here

For more on Rewilding Britain, click here 

2025 Defra Guidance on wild release and management of beavers in England

The post #319 Revisited: Green Engineering, with Bison first appeared on Engineering Matters.