"Is a River Alive" | Reviewed by Bill Schwab

Is a river alive? is the central question raised by the renowned nature writer Robert McFarlane in his latest book. His thesis is that rivers are living beings that should be recognized as such and protected by law like human beings.

The author takes the reader to three imperiled river systems. To the spectacular Los Cedros River in Ecuador, the Chennai and its wounded lagoons and tributaries in India, and to the wild Mutehekau Shipu (Magpie River) in Canada.

Ecuador became the first nation to protect the rights of nature in its constitution. Articles 71-74 of the 2008 Constitution recognize nature as having fundamental rights, including the right to exist, persist, and regenerate its life cycles. These constitutional articles safeguard the Los Cedros River from the aggressive mining companies seeking gold and other mineral deposits in the Los Cedros watershed, which would pollute and damage the river.

Chennai’s river system, composed of the joining of the Kosasthalaiyar, Cooum, and Adyar Rivers, stands in sharp contrast to Los Cedros. In 2017, the court recognized the rights of nature in Tamil Nadu, the Indian state in which Chennai is located. Still, its tributaries remain open sewers contaminated with high levels of heavy metals and fecal matter. Those who want to clean up these rivers, “want to counter-map life back into this landscape; to re-render the presence of pallayir—the web of being.”

  Macfarlane plunges into the whitewater of Canada’s Mutehekau Shipu River for his third story. In 2021, the river became the first one in Canada to be declared a “legal person [and] living entity.” Macfarlane paddles through eddies and learns how to float downstream, suddenly, when he is thrown from his kayak. “Days on the water have produced in me the intensifying feeling of somehow growing together with the river, not thinking about it, but being thought by it.”

McFarlane’s book is timely. Rivers are threatened worldwide. They have been poisoned, dammed, reduced to open sewers, and even dried up. The author wants the rivers to be revived to remind us of the interdependence between the human and natural worlds, as depicted in a Māori proverb: “I am the river: the river is me.”

  Is a river alive? MacFarlane does not provide a straightforward answer, but instead wrestles with this question before his readers. He presents a thought-provoking piece of nature literature and an introduction to the Rights of Nature movement, which has yet to gain significant traction in the United States. The author is a master wordsmith, writing prose that dazzles and is sometimes humorous. In getting around an impassable rapids, he maintains, “even the trout have portage trails.”

The naturalist frequently expresses anger at corporations and governments (the pollutocrats) that disregard the environmental impact of their activities, such as polluting the rivers or taking land away from people who have tended it for generations, as long as they can generate a profit.

In the style of Robin Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass,” Macfarlane writes uncompromisingly about the responsibility of protecting the environment. His excitement about the “radical” idea that rivers are alive is sincere, and his enthusiasm infectious. However, I did miss any acknowledgement from him of the indigenous peoples who have wisely cared for the rivers and land for thousands of years.

About the author: Robert McFarlane is internationally recognized for his writing on nature, people, and place. He is the author of several bestselling books, including “Underland,” “The Wild Places,” and “Mountains of the Mind.” McFarlane’s works have been adapted for various media, including opera, film, music, theater, radio, and dance. He is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

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