Seem needlessly harsh to humans, is there some less hubristic animal? The other animals don't even know the word, and they'd pave over rivers too if they even were capable of having bad ideas, I mean it's not like beavers or termites are exercising wise restraint.
Beavers are arguably beneficial to the bigger picture in their area, they don't make concreate waterways, they make large shallow lakes with lots of boggy areas.
Hellish for humans to walk about and navigate, sure.
Very good for temperature stabilisations, wetland life, water retention in areas that would otherwise drain and dry out, etc.
Also arguably bad in some places they're edging out the locals (South America) or contributing to greenhouse gas emissions (the warming Arctic), if you believe in "invasive species" (some people don't)
Definitely, beavers are excellent, but not on purpose. When we say "human hubris" we're thinking of ourselves as bad for being able to think of things. Bacteria, by comparison, cause less havoc, but that's because their activities are limited by what's evolutionarily adaptive. They caused a mass extinction once, but that was a couple of billion years ago. None of the other creatures are being deliberately good. Neither are humans, on the whole, but at least it troubles our minds sometimes.
