The problem isn't the beavers. The beavers bring water with them. With water comes wetland rules and regulation and setbacks and, and, and, and.... and all yo

The problem isn't the beavers. The beavers bring water with them. With water comes wetland rules and regulation and setbacks and, and, and, and.... and all your plans for whatever you were gonna do with the land go up in smoke. Doubly so if you were planning something cheap and minimal impact. A couple cabins in the forest don't justify huge regulatory expenses to fight this stuff. Whereas BigCo's development can absorb that cost. Bonus points if the locals show up to the planning meeting for the BigCo project and say things like "we don't want things like this here, we want rustic cabins and campgrounds and agriculture and small business". Wetland regulation also acts like a ratchet. The soil will change from being underwater and so land that would have been considered upland before the beavers will be considered wetland after them even if the plants go back to how they were before the beavers. Pretty much all the "hey, that's obviously dumb and non-optimal why the F does that make financial sense" stuff you see in land development comes from the massive third rail that is wetlands.