The Beaver, an Architect for Life

Presentation

Rémi MASSON - Compère du Festival

France

https://www.remimasson.com/

Photographs

Rémi Masson Diving Photographer
A native of Annecy in Haute-Savoie, Rémi MASSON has been exploring the fresh waters of the Rhône-Alpes region for over 20 years, unraveling their mysteries and revealing their hidden beauty through images.
His first encounter with a beaver was some twenty years ago, in a backwater of the Rhône. Since then, he has spent over 200 dives in the company of Europe’s largest rodent.
To raise awareness of this freshwater world, he has taken part in the production of numerous films and TV documentaries broadcast on ARTE, TF1, France 5, Canal +, NHK Japan, the BBC…
His photographic work has won over twenty international awards, and is the subject of several books. The latest, on the beaver, will be published in September 2024.

Exposition

2024 1 | COSEC

An emblematic animal of our fresh waters, the beaver came very close to extinction.
At the beginning of the 20th century, only a handful remained in the southern Rhône valley.
The first animal to be granted protected status in France, the beaver gradually re-colonized its former habitats. Beyond the message of hope conveyed by this successful rescue, the beaver, as an architect species that shapes its environment in important ways, is also proving to be a valuable ally in the renaturation of watercourses, increasing the biodiversity of the sites where it settles and curbing the effects of climate change, particularly drought.