6 d. ago Robert Macfarlane: ‘Sometimes I felt as if the river was writing me’

The writer and poet on reimagining rivers as living beings, the ecological crisis near and far and why copyright laws should protect natureRobert Macfarlane has been called the “great nature writer and nature poet of this generation”. A teacher, campaigner and mountaineer, he has been exploring the relationship between landscape and people since his breakthrough book, Mountains of the Mind, in 2003. His latest work, Is a River Alive?, was more than four years in the making, and, he says, the most urgent book he has written.Q: Your book is poignant and inspiring, but one part that made me laugh is where you first tell your son the title and he replies, “Duh, of course it’s alive. That’s going to be a really short book.” So, I should first congratulate you on stringing it out for more than 350 pages! Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago The catastrophic extent of Britain's river problem: 'Undrinkable, unswimmable, and now untouchable', says nature expert ROBERT MACFARLANE

Top nature writer ROBERT MACFARLANE talks to Maddy Fletcher about what we've got wrong with our waterways - and how we can rescue them for the good of all

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2 w. ago ‘I took a river cruise around Southeast Asia and found one part so moving’

Our writer took an unforgettable river journey through Laos where she was welcomed by locals, explored ancient caves, visited a pottery village and tried a local delicacy

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3 w. ago ‘Chipmunks were obsessed with my mics’: the man who recorded a tree for a year

Joshua Bonnetta spent 8,760 hours recording a pine – then honed it down into a four-hour album full of creatures, cracking branches and quite possibly the sound of leaves growingWhat does a landscape sound like when it’s not being listened to? This philosophical question was a catalyst for film-maker and artist Joshua Bonnetta, who has distilled a year of recordings from a single tree in upstate New York – that’s 8,760 hours – into a four-hour album, The Pines. As Robert Macfarlane writes in his accompanying essay, The Pines is a reminder of the natural world’s “sheer, miraculous busyness”, its “froth of signals and noise”. It is rich with poetic meaning, and resonant amid the climate emergency.“It started as a personal thing,” Bonnetta explains from his studio in Munich, where he relocated from the US in 2022. For over 20 years he has made sonic records of places as private mementos, but recent experiments with long-form field recording led him to push himself “to document this pla...

Politics

3 w. ago Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane review – streams of consciousness

An impassioned plea to save our rivers combines poetry and adventureTracking a river through a cedar forest in Ecuador, Robert Macfarlane comes to a 30ft-high waterfall and, below it, a wide pool. It’s irresistible: he plunges in. The water under the falls is turbulent, a thousand little fists punching his shoulders. He’s exhilarated. No one could mistake this for a “dying” river, sluggish or polluted. But that thought sparks others: “Is this thing I’m in really alive? By whose standards? By what proof? As for speaking to or for a river, or comprehending what a river wants – well, where would you even start?”He’s in the right place to be asking. In September 2008, Ecuador, “this small country with a vast moral imagination”, became the first nation in the world to legislate on behalf of water, “since its condition as an essential element for life makes it a necessary aspect for existence of all living beings”. This enshrinement of the Rights of Nature set off similar development...

Politics

3 w. ago Is this river alive? Robert Macfarlane on the lives, deaths and rights of our rivers

As pollution levels hit record highs and fresh water becomes ‘the new oil’, is it time to radically reimagine our relationship to the natural world?If you find it difficult to think of a river as alive, try picturing a dying or dead river. This is easier. We know what this looks like. We know how it feels. A dying river is one who does not reach the sea. A dying river’s fish float belly-up in stagnant pools. Swans on the upper Thames near Windsor now wear brown tidemarks on their snowy chest feathers, showing where they have sailed through sewage. I recently saw a Southern Water riverbank sign badged with a bright blue logo that read “Water for Life”. The sign instructed passersby to “avoid contact with the water. If you’ve had contact with the water, please wash your hands before eating.” In parts of this septic isle, fresh water has become first undrinkable, then unswimmable, then untouchable.How did it come to this – and where do we go from here? The crisis is one of imagination ...

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