Feature photo by Ryan Trestrail on Unsplash

I have just finished reading Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane and I feel deeply unsettled:

What if rivers are not just waterways—but the circulatory system of the Earth?

We understand the importance of flow in our own bodies. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients, removes waste, sustains life. When that flow is disrupted, the consequences may be slow, but they are certain.

And yet, when it comes to rivers, we behave as if the same principle does not apply.

We dam them. Divert them. Pollute them. Extract from them.

We treat them as resources to be managed, rather than living systems we depend on.

The River I Knew

I grew up in Aotearoa New Zealand, where rivers were simply part of life—present, reliable, seemingly permanent.

But even 40 years ago, I began to notice change.

At first, it was subtle. A little less water. A slower current. More dark green algae.

Later, living on a property that had a river boundary, I saw it more clearly. I watched its daily and seasonal rhythms—and over time, I watched those rhythms falter.

Year on year, less water made it downstream.

What had once flowed became intermittent.

Then, eventually, a dry riverbed for months at a time—the only stream input was effluent run off from a neighbouring dairy farm.

At the time, I didn’t have the language of “living systems.”

But I knew something wasn’t right.

What We Now Have Words For

Reading Is a River Alive?, I recognised what I had sensed all those years ago.

Where I once had only observation, Robert Macfarlane now offers language.

Rivers are not just features of the landscape. They are dynamic, living systems—shaping and sustaining everything around them.

And we are not separate from them.

When a river is polluted, something in us is also being polluted.

When flow is interrupted, resilience—ecological and human—is diminished.

A Pattern We Are Repeating

Robert Macfarlane writes about the Intag River in Ecuador as part of an ancient Andean watershed system.

For millions of years, this landscape has sustained a continuous cycle of cloud, forest, rain, and river—though the river itself has shifted and changed its course over time.

Now, in the space of just a few decades, that system is being rapidly disrupted by gold mining.

Forests are being cleared. Headwaters are being exposed. Toxic chemicals are leaching into the water. The living flow of the river is being weakened and broken.

What took geological time to form is being unravelled in a single human lifetime.

This is not an isolated story. It is a pattern.

And it is one we see much closer to home.

Across Australia, our river systems are under pressure—reduced flows, rising salinity, nutrient loading, and the slow accumulation of decisions made for short-term gain.

Often, the change is incremental. Easy to normalise. Easy to overlook.

Until it’s too late and flow is lost.

Life-Limiting Decisions

Every day we make decisions—individually and collectively—that limit life.

We pollute waterways while expecting clean drinking water.

We degrade soil while expecting nutrient-dense food.

We push our own bodies—through stress, overconsumption, disconnection—while expecting long-term health.

The pattern is the same:

Short-term productivity at the expense of long-term flow.

Flow as Practice

My word for this year is flow.

And I keep returning to what that river once was—connected, responsive, alive, part of a cycle.

Flow is not passive. A healthy river adapts, moves, shapes the landscape it travels through.

In our own lives and in our work, flow asks something of us:

To notice what constricts and what nourishes.

To reduce the toxins we allow in—physically, emotionally, systemically.

To make decisions that sustain life over time, rather than deplete it.

This is the work we are now engaged in across Australia—supporting farmers, leaders and communities to think in terms of whole systems, not parts.

To recognise that water, soil, people and decisions are inseparable.

A Different Responsibility

When we begin to see rivers as living systems, responsibility shifts.

It is no longer about managing a resource.

It becomes about participating in the conditions that sustain life.

Caring for rivers is not separate from caring for human health.

It is the same work—expressed at different scales.

The Question That Remains

The river always flows to the sea.

The question is not whether there is movement—but what kind of movement we are creating.

Are we contributing to systems that sustain life?

Or are we, slowly and incrementally, constricting the very flows we depend on?

Because, as with our own bodies, the consequences may not be immediate.

But they will come.