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 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?

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, Macfarlane examines 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?