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This book is a journey into an idea that changes the world – the idea that a river is alive. Robert Macfarlane asks us to imagine that rivers are not mere water for human use, but living beings, who should be recognised as such in both imagination and law.

Around the world, rivers are dying from pollution, drought and damming. But a powerful movement is also underway worldwide to recognise the lives and rights of rivers. This young ‘rights of nature’ movement has lit up activists, artists and lawmakers across six continents, and become a focus for revolutionary thinking.

In Is a River Alive? Robert Macfarlane explores rivers across the world, journeying to Ecuador, India and Quebec.
‘In the final, intense months of writing this book at home in Cambridge, my dreams became riverish. Night after night I would swim up rivers or sink into their waters…’

In this final episode he visits the springs near his home in Cambridge and imagines the birth of that river, 12,000 years ago. He explores how modern technologies are now able to map the ghost-paths of old rivers, and how the branching flow of rivers echoes the flow of blood within the human body.

Robert Macfarlane is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people and place. His best-selling books include Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places and Mountains of the Mind, as well as a book-length prose-poem, Ness. As a lyricist and performer, he has collaborated with musicians including Karine Polwart, Johnny Flynn and Cosmo Sheldrake. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Read by Robert Macfarlane
With music by Cosmo Sheldrake and Robert Macfarlane
Produced and abridged by Elizabeth Burke
Studio Production and Sound Design by Jon Calver
Executive Producer: Sara Davies
A Loftus Media production for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4