written by Robert Macfarland
review by JoAnn Hackos

A few years ago, Boulder Audubon considered giving Boulder Creek personhood, giving it rights like those of living people. Personhood would enable it to sue in court to stop pollution. The Whanganui River in New Zealand, the Magpie River in Canada, and the Klamath River in the United States have all been declared persons. It means that they have intrinsic value and deserve to be preserved from degradation.

Robert MacFarlane takes us to three rivers to explore the idea that if a river is indeed alive, it should have the right to protect itself. He visits the Los Cedros River in Ecuador, the Chenai in India, and the Mutehekau Shipu in Quebec. Each river tells a different story about the fate of the rivers in our world. MacFarlane uses the stories to awaken our recognition that rivers throughout the world, even in our own home, are endangered, affected by pollution, population growth, and climate change. We might consider if we want to protect Bear Creek from changes that are already having considerable impact along its route from Mt. Blue Sky to the Platte River Valley.

The Los Cedros River in Ecuador was in danger of being destroyed by copper mining and deforestation. But with the election of a new president and a new constitution, ratified in 2008, everything changed. The Ecuadorian Constitution acknowledged the rights of Nature. It asserts that Nature has the right to exist, regenerate, be restored, and be respected. Macfarlane travels to explore the Los Cedros with three companions – a human rights lawyer, a musician, and a mycologist. Giuliana Furci is excited about every mushroom she finds along the path, including species new to science.

The trio spends days hiking through the forest, finding moths, hummingbirds, howler monkeys, butterflies, bears, vultures – a world so full of living beings that the author finds it difficult to absorb it all. Guiliana speaks of three rivers. One river can be seen, flowing down into the valley below. A second river exists underground, a fungal river of fungi, a micro river system of water and nutrients. The third is the sky river, the water-bearing atmosphere, some of it flowing uphill, returning water to the river’s source.

The Los Cedros proves to be a magical, mystical river, now protected by the Ecuadoran constitution.

The second river isn’t so lucky. The Adyar River flows (sort of) through Chennai India toward the Indian Ocean. Macfarlane tells us that he comes to Chennai in search of ghosts, rivers that were killed for a city to live. Chennai has three rivers, all of them dead, filled with heavy metals, fecal matter, and coliform bacteria. The 6.5 million people living in Chennai discharge 55 million liters of effluents and sewage into the rivers every day.

Macfarlane and his friends trace the Chennai back to its source. They visit Vedarthangal, a vast lake 50 miles inland. It is an enormous bird sanctuary, teaming with ibises, spoonbills, grebes, cormorants, egrets, and more. At this point, the Chennai is still alive, but it has been murdered on its way to the sea. In the city, the ghosts of rivers lie all around.

Chennai is a vast industrial zone, filled with factories emitting dangerous chemicals into any water that is left. The people, like the rivers, are being poisoned. MacFarlane only sees damage: “the devasted river. Barbed-wire fences enclosing factories. Networks of rusting iron pipes … moving satanic substances around.” Yet, his friends have hope, celebrating small victories to restore the river. Despite all the destruction, the sea turtles still come to the shore to lay their eggs. Now, however, people dig up the eggs and move them to protected areas so that they can hatch successfully and the babies returned to the sea. There is still some hope.

Macfarlane’s third river is the Mutehekau Shipu in Quebec, Canada near the border with Labrador. The local indigenous people invite him to experience the river they are trying to save from another dam. All the other rivers in the area have been damned for hydroelectric power. Those rivers are dead. The Mutehekau Shipu still has a chance of remaining alive. The others are ghost rivers.

If Hydro-Quebec succeeds with its multi-dam complex it would triple-kill the Muthekau Shipu, destroying its banks, drowning it, entombing it in walls and extending the damage into the forests and mountains around the lower river.

In 2018, an alliance was formed to protect the river, an alliance that includes the Innu people who “theoretically” manage this part of Quebec. The alliance supports the Rights of Nature concept. The resolution they drafted has three key principles: first, the river is a living being and is sacred. Second, each generation must protect the river for the next generations. Third, the human and non-human lives of the river are linked. Damming the river threatens the entire community, including the people.

Luckily for MacFarlane, his trip down the Mutehekua Shipu is led by three experienced river people. As a consequence, he survives the trip, since this river is exceedingly wild. The team uses a plane to reach the upper section of the river, dropping them off on the immense Lac Magpie. It will take them several days of paddling to reach the river. The lake is so large that it would take the river a year to drain it.

After several days on the lake, they finally reach the river. Around the river’s first big bend, they encounter the first of many rapids, some too dangerous for Macfarlane to ride out. That means he must hike around while the experienced men ride the rapids.

The group camps along the river in areas besieged by black flies, moose, storms, and dreams. They stake out the rapids, trying to find a safe way through. MacFarlane is inexperienced. He worries about getting through the rapids. He recounts that the water “picks me up as if I were driftwood and tilts me upwards at 45 degrees and spins me through 180 degrees “… until he is surfing the monstrous wave backwards. The story he tells is thrilling – and he makes it through.

Is A River Alive? is a thrilling book, well worth a second reading. It has won innumerable awards. It helps us learn about a part of nature that we usually just take for granted. It helps us remember that even poor dammed Bear Creek is a river alive.