At the heart of Robert Macfarlane's Is a River Alive? is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings, who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. Around the world, rivers are dying from pollution, drought and damming. But a powerful “rights of nature” movement is underway to re-animate our relationships with these vast, mysterious presences whose landscapes we share. 

Macfarlane joined us and local environmental non-profit Pacific Salmon Foundation to discuss a radical re-imagination of not only rivers but life itself, in conversation with award-winning journalist Laura Lynch.