Is a River Alive? With Robert Macfarlane

Whether it’s the Amazon or Amstel, our language, laws, and economies still treat rivers as resources – channels to be dredged, diverted, and controlled. In his latest book, Is a river alive?, Robert Macfarlane asks whether rivers are not objects, but beings with life, agency, and rights. How would it change us to live not above the river, but alongside it?

With Is a river alive?, Macfarlane writes his most political book yet. Recognizing rivers as living entities, he argues, is essential to restoring our damaged ecosystems. It calls for a radical reimagining of law, language, and land – a shift from dominion to kinship.

This conversation takes place in the Dutch delta, where the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt meet the sea. In collaboration with the Embassy of the North Sea and the Confluence of European Water Bodies, we examine how the Rights of Nature movement could reshape Europe’s laws and policies. What can the Netherlands – a country built on water – learn from this shift?

The third edition of the Confluence of European Water Bodies will take place in the Netherlands, from 21 – 24 September 2025.

Born out of growing water challenges and demands for water democracy worldwide, the Confluence of European Water Bodies sprang from a collective pursuit of a deeper understanding of the Rights of Nature in Europe. As a learning system for water diplomacy, new strategies for effectively representing water in Europe’s cultural, legal and political realms are being explored, rehearsed and advocated.

Founded by the Embassy of the North Sea and TBA21-Acsademy at the shores of the Spanish saltwater lagoon the Mar Menor in 2023, this network of rivers, seas, lakes, glaciers, wetlands and lagoons is a learning system for representation of water ecosystems in Europe’s cultural, legal and political realms (read more).

Participating water bodies: Akerselva, Baltic Sea, Deep Sea, Dogger Bank, Drina, Genova waters, Irish Sea & Liffey, Klarälven, Laguna de la Janda, Loire, Meuse, Mar Menor, Mediterranean, North Sea, Odra, Os_lo Fjord, Ouse, Pek, Piave, Reuss, Reva, Rhine, Rhône, Snæfellsjökul, Spree, Tara, Tagliamento, Tavignanu, Tejo, Ticino, Vättern, Venice lagoon, Viskan, Vistula, Wattenmeer and Zenne