Upstream - Drinkable Rivers with Li An Phoa
Episode Date: January 16, 2024“The sign of a healthy economy should be a drinkable river,” these are the words of Li An Phoa, an environmental activist and our guest for this episode. In 2005, Li An Phoa canoed the full length... of the Rupert, a river in Canada. All along the way, she was able to drink water straight from the river. When she returned three years later, this was no longer the case. The river had been poisoned from dams, mining, and industry. Fish died, people got ill, and the delicate balance in the ecosystem was destroyed. Realizing that drinkable rivers are not just a key indicator of ecological health, but community vitality and resilience as well, and that rivers can only be drinkable when economic systems are post-growth, truly democratic, place-based, and respectful of the commons and Indigenous peoples, Li An decided to dedicate her life to re-cultivating drinkable rivers. Since then, Li An founded the Drinkable Rivers organization and Spring College and has walked many rivers, using citizen science to test the water quality, training others to do the same, and intervening when a river has been contaminated or is off-balance. Her 1,000-kilometer walk along the river Meuse in Europe was the subject of the documentary Long Walk for Drinkable Rivers. Most recently, she and her partner Maarten van der Schaaf wrote the book Drinkable Rivers: How the river became my teacher. In this conversation, Li An goes upstream to explain why rivers are no longer drinkable, she offers her vision of a world with drinkable rivers, shares her process for galvanizing communities to care for their watersheds, and suggests invitations for how all of us could contribute to healthier rivers and healthier eco- and economic systems around the world. Further Resources: Drinkable Rivers This episode of Upstream is brought to you by EcoGather, a holder of space between stories. EcoGather offers guided learning journeys and free weekly online EcoGatherings that foster conversation and build community around heterodox economics, collective action, and living as part of the natural world. Visit: ecogather.sterlingcollege.edu Thank you to Mirah for the intermission music and to Carolyn Raider for this episode's cover art. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
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This episode of Upstream is brought to you by EcoGather, a holder of space between stories.
EcoGather offers guided learning journeys and free, weekly online eco gatherings that foster
conversation and build community around heterodox economics, collective action, and living as part
of the natural world. Visit ecogather.stirlingcollege.edu. There's a link in the show notes.
By giving yourself more of a direct responsibility and this very intimate relationship rather than that distant,
you are more activated to care.
And so, even though it's really wonderful that we have all the assistance
that we can rely on as well,
I do think that it will help
all of us to be a bit more engaged with a lot of these basic systems. And that's why I say,
yeah, the sign of a healthy economy is a drinkable river so that we all are part of that. And that
all our actions are then evaluated by does this help towards this drinkable river or not?
You are listening to upstream upstream upstream a podcast of documentaries and
conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics.
I'm Robert Raymond and I'm Della Duncan. The sign of a healthy economy
should be a drinkable river. These are the words of Leanne Poe, an environmental activist,
and our guest for this episode. In 2005, Leanne can use the full length of the river,
a river in Canada. All along the way, she was able to drink water straight from the river.
But when she returned three years later, this was no longer the case.
The river had been poisoned by dams and mining.
Fish died, people got ill, and the delicate balance in the ecosystem was destroyed.
Realizing that drinkable rivers are not just a key indicator of ecological health, but community vitality and resilience as well,
and the rivers can only be drinkable when economic systems are a post-growth,
truly democratic, place-based, and respectful of the commons and indigenous peoples,
Leanne decided to dedicate her life to recultivating drinkable rivers.
Since then, Leanne founded the Drinkable Rivers Organization
at Spring College and has walked many rivers using citizen signs to test the water quality,
training others to do the same, and intervene when a river has been contaminated or is off balance.
Her thousand kilometer walk along the river Mews in Europe was the subject of
the documentary Long Walk for Drinkable Rivers. Most recently, she and her partner Martin
Vanderchef wrote the book Drinkable Rivers, How the River Became My Teacher.
In this conversation, Leanne goes upstream to explain why rivers are no longer drinkable.
She offers her vision of a world with drinkable rivers, shares her process for galvanizing
communities to care for their watersheds, and suggests invitations for how all of us
could contribute to healthier rivers and healthier eco and economic systems around the world.
And before we get started, just a quick note, upstream is entirely listener funded.
We couldn't do this without the support of our listeners and fans.
If you haven't already, if you can, if you're in a place where you can afford to do so,
and it's important to you to help keep upstream sustainable, please consider going to
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us a review.
It really helps us get in front of more eyes and into more ears.
We don't have a marketing budget or anything like that for upstream, so we really do rely
on listeners like you to help grow
our audience and spread the word. Thank you. And just a quick update on our Patreon, we should have
everything set to go by the end of the month and we're planning on having three bonus episodes
for our Patreon subscribers for the month of February. So, one will be an interview with Roger Kearin
and Joe Jamison on their excellent book, Socialism Betrayed, Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union.
A really, really great conversation, and another will be a conversation that we're planning to have
later this month with economist Doug Hanwood on the problems with modern monetary theory, so that'll be another bonus episode.
And the third will be part 7 in our ongoing series on Palestine.
It will likely be an exploration on the geopolitics of the broader region.
We're still figuring out the details on that.
So look forward to three Patreon episodes for February, which we're really excited
about.
And those will be in addition, of course, to our regular scheduled programming.
And when everything is in place, we'll release a short update episode explaining everything. So thanks for your patience. We're almost there. And now, here's Della in conversation with Leanne Cove.
Wonderful, welcome to Upstream. So happy to have you on. Let's start with an introduction. How might you introduce yourself for our listeners?
you on. Let's start with an introduction. How might you introduce yourself for our listeners?
Yeah, very nice to be here in conversation with you, Dela. My name is Leon Poa and I'm from the Peabody Lowlands, the Netherlands, and I was born in the very lowest part of the Lowlands,
and now living on the coast of North Sea. And I see myself as a watershed mobilizer.
And I do that by walking rivers from source to sea
for a world with drinkable rivers,
with the idea that if we have a world
with drinkable rivers again,
it means that all our relations are healthy and in balance.
So it's like an ultimate, keep performance indicator,
or however you want to call it a mirror
of how we are living,
that I want to address while walking rivers.
Beautiful, thank you.
Watershed mobilizer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of the ways that you kind of introduce yourself
or kind of a note of who you are in your book is you said that
Someone described you as a I'm not gonna say it in in Dutch, but a militant Dutch ecologist and then you said your mom asked
You know, what does that mean and you say oh, I think it's an environmental activist that she kind of you know
questions that and then you bring up this beautiful quote of Winona Laduc, who is an indigenous writer and environmental activist who says,
someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist,
and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesn't make you a corporate terrorist.
So I love that, that like, you know, that flip. So I'm so happy to hear that you've landed on
watershed mobilizer. That's beautiful. Right. So it's that activation part that I totally agree with
and that but that I think with mobilizing it covers much more of the meaning of what I'm doing
is much more of the meaning of what I'm doing and then yeah to make it also normal to care and to stand up and to mobilize and to get into action rather than seeing it as an exception
as being an activist. Absolutely. So you said that you have this vision of a world with drinkable
rivers and I know this is something that you invite children
to explore as you walk.
What does that vision look and feel like to you?
Like if you were to bring us into a visualization
or just an experience of what a world with drinkable rivers
would look and feel like, what does that look and feel like to you?
Yeah, so it is buzzing with life. There's all these dragonflies that are so dependent on good water quality where their larvae can grow and may flies who are also dependent on such a balanced ecosystem that are so healthy that life can thrive. And so it means also that it's back of commons for all of us, for all life forms, humans and
more than humans, or other than humans.
And it means that the river banks have spaces to me under and to flood once in a while.
And where we have, we found our place where we and how we are living is conducive to life and so aligned where the rivers back our
teacher, where we honor that water is our lifeline because we tend to forget it. When it's
there, the water, we take it for granted and when it's not there, then we feel alarmed
by it. And so in this world, it's where we are constantly caring, appreciating,
and enjoying, thriving of it.
Oh, thank you. Of course, that's beautiful. Buzzing with life.
And it's not only children that I'm inviting to. It's also mayors and all other people, yeah.
Powerful. And I know that sometimes it's these moments that help us kind of have
shift in perspective or really activate us to be able to you know act on
behalf of the living earth or watershed. And I know your book has so many of
these moments. Can you tell us the story of the first time you actually drink
from a river? What was that? What was that like? What happened there? Yeah, this
is one of those stories that I can just keep on telling. It's like one of the reason why I
we decided to write the books that also many stories I'd like to keep as an experience rather than becoming a story I'm telling, but this one I can always tell you. So I was back 24. I was in the northern part, the Separtic area of Quebec in Canada, at the Rupert River
that was planned to be damned by a mega-damp.
So 24, no wilderness experience growing up in suburban Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and
not really prepared of what I was endeavoring.
But then, even if I had a water filter, people said to me, you can drink here straight without filter from the water.
So I scooped and the water out of my hands, I could take a zip,
and simultaneously a tear dropped down my cheek.
Because I was really experiencing this deep sense of beauty
that I had never experienced before.
So that was really this redefining
moment for me. Plus, then all these different feelings and emotions then come, like, oh,
of course, our ancestors were all drinking like this. I totally forgotten. I had normalized
the tap water, whereas that's also quite, well, even special that we can drink from the tap. I mean, there's only a handful of countries in the world where
that's even possible.
But then the thousands of pipelines that are needed to make that
and all that like, oh, this was like, this is what's normal.
And beautiful.
And I want a world back again, where this is normal.
And where we are aware of our shifting baseline syndrome,
where we've forgotten this out of our framework,
where now it's maybe utopian to want a world back
with drink per river's blood.
Hey, that shouldn't be the case.
And so it was a combination of that emotion
and then three years later that these first
so-called economic development choices were made for the building of this big mega-dame.
We're in starting to be in place and the river got diverted, couldn't flow as it was.
And then the previous developments of forestry and mining where they had used mercury in that silver mining became a problem.
And within three years time the river wasn't drinkable anymore and that was then a shock,
another tear rolled down my cheek. And then it really put me into this mobilization action mode.
So I thought, okay, I already took the drinkable river as my personal compass,
but I want to take that further into the world. Yeah. Because if we don't care for the river,
then it gets lost. Like in so many places, it's not so long ago that we were able to drink for many
of our rivers and and now almost none. Yeah, the river was your compass,
and then you decided to kind of widen that out
into your mobilization efforts.
And this idea of the river being your compass,
this reminds me of deep ecology and ecosophy.
So maybe for someone who had never heard that term
before, deep ecology or ecosophy,
how might you describe that in relation to
what you just shared? Yeah, so the etymology which always helps is about the wisdom of the home.
It's to know your place in the world and to dig in there and to connect and so deep ecology is inviting us to be more grounded in our deeper intentions of
questioning what do we value and then asking deeper why do I value that so much.
And if you deepen, deepen, deepen that deepest intention which Arnanesones invited us in this very, is a philosopher, an
origin philosopher who was one of the founders or starters of the Deep Ecology
movement, and he called this asking these deeper why questions coming to what
becomes your ultimate norm, your ultimate value from where you are acting. So it's
not only the places in the landscape, but also
yourself in getting the deeper connection of what are your intentions with whatever you're doing
in the world. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So, deep ecology being the larger movement founded by folks
like Rachel Carson and Arne Ness, and then this acosophy being the wisdom of our home as it comes
through us, and we are part of the web of life. And this idea, this invitation to take a statement
that feels true to ourselves in a deep way, and then asking, why? And then why? And then why? And
getting deeper and deeper until we come to maybe some phrase or some guidance that can help us in our
life, some direction, as you say. Right, beautiful. Yeah, yeah, and it reminds me
there's a another example of this. There's a beautiful Thomas Barry essay called
The Meadow Across the Creek. This is one of the classic examples. I think of Thomas
Barry describes this meadow, you know, likely
near where he dwells. And he says, you know, he looks to that meadow and the health and
vitality of that meadow as the compass, just as you use the word compass, for that which
is good or that which is supportive of life and that which is bad and harmful. And he says in the essay, that is good in economics that fosters the natural processes of this
meadow.
That is bad in economics that diminishes the capacity of this meadow to renew itself
each spring and to provide a setting in which crickets can sing and birds can feed.
So this idea of a place on earth or a being,
or a more than human, other than human being,
that can be our compass or our teacher or our guide,
and just uplifting as well.
Your subtitle of your book is The River as My Teacher?
Yeah, how did River Be Game My Teacher?
Yeah, exactly, beautiful.
Well, wonderful.
And you said, you said, you said dwell.
Or you evoked this phrase that you brought up in the book.
I don't remember the exact quote.
You were speaking with someone.
And they said the difference between settling and dwelling.
You mind sharing that anecdote if you remember who
said it and how they phrased it?
Because I think it's relevant.
It's really good.
Yeah.
So yeah, this distinction of how you come to a place
with what kind of attitude, what kind of actions,
what kind of intentions.
And then you can also see the analogy of how you're using
your body as well, I would say.
So not only the place, but in a way, are you, as a settler,
and not paying attention of what is the health,
what are the rituals, what are the heritage, the stories.
In a way, much more the colonial way of coming somewhere,
or this way of dwelling,
have been really immersed in a place
where you honor the heritage, the history,
and all the habits and to have this much more aligned feeling.
Yeah, and it helped me a lot to read Tim Engel's work with that, to discern with what kind of
attitude are we coming. And so with regards to for instance our landscapes and also our water systems,
also for instance in the Netherlands we're very proud that we could, that the fact that we can live
here is this attitude of the settler in a way, right, that we were engineering our landscape,
building the dikes and pollering our landscape, putting, taking the water out and planning
and being in control in a way.
But what we've seen now, there has always been plenty of water,
but now suddenly we need to deal with long periods of dry.
I wouldn't really call it yet drought, but...
And so we are starting to learn that this attitude of we are in control, it's not completely real, right?
It's only because in our mindset and that it's also not very helpful in the long term.
So for instance we have then a program called Space for the Rivers and where we start to learn,
even though we were so used to making our rivers straight
and all these dikes and in order to plan and but we are now starting to learn, oh no, we have to
actually learn from the river and give it more space. Yeah. So this much more dwelling attitude
starts to grow. Beautiful. Yeah. No, the other lens such a special place, and especially in
terms of water, you're right. There's so much that is actually below sea level. I think
you write about that in the book. So yeah, too third of it. Yeah. Wow. So you described
drinking from the rootpert in Canada, and then tell us about the journey from there to
some very special places, some interesting relationships with economics to
Founding spring college. Tell us about that journey. How did this then like you said not become only your compass
But then a way that you wanted to activate and mobilize in the world
Yeah, it was well
The outdoors the walking started to invite me deeper and deeper into
it.
It was also thanks to the relationship I was having at that time who had such experience
of wilderness that I was safe enough and equipped as getting more skilled in being in the outdoors.
So it was through walking that I got much more of that connectedness.
And it ultimately, I put the Osu was walking from Mexico to Canada along the Pacific Rest
Trail.
And while preparing for that journey, feeling also how much of a privilege that is to take
half a year of your life to do that. And I felt this deep urge of wanting to connect and to share that and not keep it by myself.
And so there it started like how can we then while walking also share in how we are together experiencing this landscape, not just me or my partner at the time, but also the
ones who are joining us. And what can we discover by being in silence together and by
sharing analogies between what we can learn from a mountain and a tree and a river
from how we are losing our own bodies and how the way we're living.
And so I started wanting to weave more and more the wisdom of our home from the way
what we can learn from our home, our ecology, and from how we are putting that into actions,
say our economy. And yeah, then it was too difficult to have that on the trail of the Pacific Restrile.
So that was a good choice not to do it there.
But soon after, like a year after, I started this nomadic outdoor school that I was inviting people on walks,
often with a guest teacher, where we would always have a different place, different topic, different groups.
We would share food from the ground, you know, potluck, picnic style and explore each other.
And always weave these things like what's deeply personal. So there's again what we touched
upon with our deep ecology question, what is unique about this group and this moment in time
and then the place that we share and the landscape we're in. Yeah. And so this was very much
informed by my time studying at Schumacher College and we wanted to bring this depth into our learning experiences. Yeah, thank you. And I do just appreciate how many people, you know, journey on
walking pilgrimages today. There's so many people who go whether it's in
Korea or in Spain, the Camino. There's so much, yeah, walking with reverence
and going on a journey that people are taking nowadays. And I even remember meeting someone at Schumacher,
I don't remember their name,
but they said that they would take people on journeys
and drop in like a societal question,
like homelessness or racism and then take it on a walk
and then use walking and just being outdoors
as a way to reflect but also move through societal challenges
and even like
activate different parts of the brain that wouldn't be if we were just sitting
around a computer talking about an issue. Yeah so it was nice how now when you
share that that by inviting certain groups and making sort of a program of
inviting people other things started to emerge, so teaching at different
colleges and universities, but also being invited by groups. I remember that I was invited
with a group of risk managers of a bank, and they had all their own, what is called, the
incontrol statement, but they needed to align them. At the end of their two days of working together.
They started to need to align their in control statement and they had invited me to be this
two hour or three hour session walk in between, but I infused it in their program much more than
being like, okay, we go on a walk. And so I was really going into like, I was asking them,
what kind of metaphors do you now use to say, I'm in control? And so they were saying, yeah,
this lighthouse or this ambulance or, and then I thought it wasn't my intention, but at some point
I said, what about drinkable river as anontrol statement? Like, if everything is okay, we will have a drinkable river.
And that actually at the end became there on their report,
which they had needed to share to the central bank.
They had it on the title as the drinkable
river as an incontrol statement.
So there you see that, indeed, this would never
be enriched if we had
done a meeting indoors around the table and or on a chart and with models and things like that.
No, we were really there in the landscape being informed by all these
exchanges that are happening in the depth reality. Yeah. And that reminds me of this phrase that
you say that's so powerful, the sign of a healthy economy
should be a drinkable river.
It feels again, so simple yet so powerful.
And I think of Dr. Havan Toe, the program director
of the Gross National Happiness Center,
who says, we are attentive to what we measure.
We are attentive to what we measure.
So having these metrics like a drinkable river
helps guide our energy and our, you know,
both personal and collective
but also structural energy towards that
which we're wanting to see.
Mm, yeah.
So tell us now about the journey down the mose
because this is a very special,
it feels like a turning point in the drinkable rivers
and also the spring
college offerings. This is something that really stood out to me. So tell us how
that journey, you came to that journey and also what you did as you walked down.
Yeah, so at some point decided I wanted to walk and get to know my river that has
fed me with drinking water all my life and that is the river merge that starts in
Plato, Langeau, or Basin-Yee in France, and a thousand kilometer length and with his mouth
close to where I was born in the North Sea. And so I made a 60-day walk nonstop and stayed with
people who were willing to host me and the people who were
living there. So a lot of farmers and lock keepers and teachers and mayors even and so bringing
the most to the dinner table and every day also I thought to also do a baseline study with citizen science.
I didn't know the term yet at that time, but now I know that it's citizen science engaging also
children and other people to join in looking at what is the health of our river system.
And so I can share more about that as well, of course, but this walk gave
a different relationship with this whole being of the river in 60 days. And the walk is
actually like a momentum for me also to discover what kind of opportunities for action communities
is there. And not knowing what would happen could have been a youth movement that would
have come or a foresters united things on thing to happen. But I started to meet all these
mayors and them being also this bridge between the inhabitants and all the institutions. And
I was asking at some point a French mayor like how many mayors do you know? And he knew the one upstream and downstream
from him, the neighbors, but I knew about 30 and we were starting to share what the value is
actually of knowing each other, knowing the river family, where waters are bloodline,
knowing those municipalities that are upstream that we are dependent on and and the tributaries and knowing the the ones downstream that are that you're responsible for.
And so we then after the most walk started this mayors for a drinkable
most network of all these municipalities and now they're even other
organizations joining as well well but as a watershed
so also the tributaries are joining and so you see how the river walk can be a momentum for
these action communities. Yeah beautiful and I love how you held that open that you didn't know
what the ramifications of this walk would be. You weren't like forcing an idea but this is what
emerged. Right. You know, mayors for a drinkable mouse.
And, you know, this idea of the citizen science, so my
understanding is like you and correct me if I'm wrong, but
you drink from the spring, right?
Like the very...
I drank from the spring.
And then hesitantly, though, but because there was already,
it was already in the middle of a cow food next to a road,
so I thought but I thought
the, I must take a few steps to have at least a hopeful sign, but then indeed I didn't do that
anymore afterwards. I did continue to swim in the river, which is of course then also already,
yeah, like a face where in some places, that's not possible.
So we looked at different parameters, both physical ones.
How does the landscape look like and what relationship do
we have in the landscape as human beings?
And then the chemical properties, like the pH,
but also phosphate, E. colabiteria,
and looking at the more the ecological parameters
like plant types there and dragonflies, what kind of dragonflies.
So this is what we then started to do every 15 kilometers every day.
And so we had these 60 measurements.
And in total 500 children have contributed to this research.
And so I really believe that if we, in what I call experience love care,
when we experience our rivers again, this will deepen our understanding,
it will grow our love, and that will be the basis for us to care.
And the citizen science will also inform people that it's something concrete that we can measure that we have the parameters for it.
We have the, for an ecologically healthy river, which would be close to a drinkable river.
So I'm not using the norms of drinking water, that's, that's different.
But this ecologically healthy river, we have the parameters for that that we can trek.
What is it now?
That's the baseline study.
And then is it improving over time or upstream
or downstream or after a heavy rainfall or not?
And so you then also empower communities
to be these antennae of their place in the world where they can address like alarm
something's happening or to really celebrate while having returned this wetland is actually
contributing to our river. Yeah, and I love that there's the the citizen science aspect, the data
collection, and then there's this other level of just observation
that you're inviting folks into,
like just being perceptive and sensing into
how is the river feeling?
Like we can sense into health, right,
of a landscape or a river.
So you're just inviting folks to really become people of place.
Yes, and we start with that by coming together
and so step one in the research is
thinking the river and sharing anecdotes and especially with several generations, we can learn
how our relationship evolved over time, positive or negative, but that our relationship changes over time,
that we have with the river. And then it's like, I'm not saying that that's a spiritual,
say, step in the research.
But in a way, you fuse science and spirituality
by being that step one and then step two will be, you know,
assessing how does the landscape look like.
And I like that a lot also to bring these different aspects
together of that all these stories and observations
and measurements, they belong together
and they are all important.
So you mentioned step one and step two.
What are the other steps?
Yeah, so I mentioned a few of them, examples of the phosphate
measuring, how much phosphate is there, nitrate, nitrate, temperature,
pH, E. coli bacteria that's from R.Poo and P, and the different plant types.
So there's about 14 different measurements and in about 28 parameters, This is one of the very integral or integrated citizen science programs
that I know of. And that's what I really wanted to bring that all together.
You're listening to an upstream conversation with Leanne Poe. We'll be right back. Got some rotten teal What a way to compromise
It's all that weight
For you that too
Claim that fan I'll surprise
We'll begin at the sorry face
I can not get lost that feel
But if you keep looking up at night
That stars were already But if you keep looking up at night, the stars will all end
See, there's food for me, there's food for you, there's food and sin be in
There's oceans and the trees
Let's take all that we need
We know what we believe
There's hope for you and me
My eyes can almost see
If you find until you die
You don't have to wait until you die
You don't have to wait until you die
You don't have to wait until you die
You don't have to wait until you die That was Apples in the Trees by Mira.
Now back to our conversation with Leanne Poe.
So let's zoom out for a moment.
What makes a river undrinkable?
Yeah, so well, let's start with what is happening right now a lot. So it's these substances.
Somehow we're quite addicted at the moment to these substances. What I've learned from eco-toxologists
is that every 1.6 seconds a new new substance, enters our living environment.
This is a global estimate, but it accelerates because two years ago, I could still say,
two every two seconds.
But this substance, we don't know what they are.
We don't also know what the consequences are, but they are entering our living environment.
So either it's our waterways or air or soil.
If we don't know the consequence, we don't know whether like what you said with Thomas Berry
and what I'm trying to say with the drink, what effect it has on us, on our health and on the health
of the ecosystem. So you can think of medicines, all kinds of medicines that we are using, all kind of plastics that are entering.
Yeah, it's the way we eat, the way we close ourselves, address ourselves.
It's on all these elements, but also even intimate things like soap and toothpaste.
So that is one thing, the substances.
Another thing is that when we are changing the course of rivers by straightening them,
by hardening their river banks, the speed changes also.
So they reach seas quicker, oftentimes.
They can not flood the land next to adjacent to the river as often.
not flood the land next to adjacent to the river as often.
And so you miss a lot of these healthy interactions that are happening on these river banks.
For instance, if there's just already a rock in the river,
the water can swirl around and these vortexes,
we're just starting to grasp what they mean.
They are all over.
We can see them in so many shapes in the natural world,
and in our bodies. But when we are straiting them, they get lost or less and less. So
the loss of trees and all these, well, by hardening our banks, a lot of trees and their roots and all the critters that can live there because
the trees and shrubs are there are getting lost and then that quality of these living sponges
gets lost.
But also their quality of providing shade and having them cooling a system rather than
warming up because that's one of these effects of our economy
or of our way of living, you know, the industry parks or cities often, our rivers are warming
up.
And so warmth is also the silent polluter of making the rivers undrinkable.
Yeah, so these are some examples, but if we have these unstraight and meundering flowing,
overflowing, where beavers are helping
to engineer our landscapes, where trees, and all these life
forms are helping to clean, we are helping
to increase the self-healing capacity of the river system.
And we are then part of this self.
And that is this, yeah, are we aligning our actions to this healing and therefore them healthy,
river and landscape, or are we deteriorating and moving away from from those qualities?
Yeah, you're you're reminding me of the frame that humans can have an ecological footprint,
as in that which we kind of take or are negative impact on the planet, but we also can have ecological
handprints, the ways that we are a part of living ecosystems and support its thriving and its
self-healing capacities, as you're saying.
The show is called Upstream. It's called Upstream based on this metaphor
from public health about going upstream from the problems of our time to the root causes.
I wonder if you were to take us on a journey upstream metaphorically from these chemicals, these
toxins that are into the water at ever accelerating speeds, this straightening of rivers and this,
you know, taking away the trees, the sponges, and that what are the root causes of those
challenges that we're facing?
Like, what is it about what we're thinking or the way we see the world
or our behaviors that is leading to those actions
on our part?
Yeah, beautiful question.
Of course, I need to think about board of through
what had been teaching for a week at Schumacher College
and starting to teach me about upstream
and downstream ways of thinking.
So I think one of those values or feelings is this fear also of the water that we have.
So I think a lot of the times people were either fed up or scared of all the flooding that was happening.
And we wanted to live close to the rivers or everywhere around the world.
It's the base of our societies,
and but we wanted to be then more in control of them.
So that is one aspect.
Then by growing and being then more successful
and becoming more of us,
then for instance, our whole relationship in how we are dealing with our shit
literally became also problem, our own and also our waste.
And so a lot of the times these rivers started to also
become smelly places and we started to turn our backs towards
the river. So it's then this
strangement with the river and also by turning our backs and then letting maybe experts deal with it
and not having your own link to it and this distance
becoming larger and larger that has been simultaneously by going more and more spending time indoors and sitting on chairs.
And so, is this not being there in the landscapes anymore and dominating and controlling a lot of it,
which has, of course, its function as well, that we create some predictability.
And, yeah, so it's very understandable and it doesn't need to be all taken away.
But I think it re-nurture more of being outside, being inside the river system,
along the river banks, spending time at our rivers.
What I said with this experience, love, care, I do think it will grow very quickly again. It comes so
natural, but we do have to invite ourselves and not only spend time behind
screens and and and flat areas, but really going into into their depth.
Absolutely. Yeah, I know I love I love your journey upstream there and and just
this distance. That's what came to me when I thought of it. It's both a physical
distance, like you're saying turning our backs towards the rivers, but it's also this feeling cut off. And I know not
all, not all cultures, not all peoples of the world have this sense of being cut from the roots,
right? But for, for many folks, they do, they just really don't have, like you're saying,
this observation, this sense of knowing the health and quality of our water sheds of our rivers.
And so that cut off, it's like this numbness, we're not even recognizing the ill health. And also we've forgotten, you had that word, you said something like new baseline syndrome. Yeah. Shifting baseline syndrome that we have now adjusted to yeah like traveling and not being able to drink out of the tap
water. That's a shifting baseline even from not being able to drink out of the
river. Right. Right. And this distance of not only being close to the river, it's
also why this little sensory said like, let's experts deal with it.
So experts are providing us with drinking water, experts are professionals are cleaning our water
system, others are taking care of our food and others are taking care of our educational system.
So our health system, the doctor knows what to do, but I don't know anymore how I can stay out.
So this is also a distance that we don't address so often, but I do see that when
there are these people that are, for instance, dependent on their own cleaning, their own
water, their wastewater, for instance, with bacteria, they are very aware that they
need to feed and be conducive to the life of
this bacteria, for them to care to deal with their wastewater. So by giving yourself more of a
direct responsibility and this very intimate relationship rather than that distant,
you are more activated to care. And so even though it's really wonderful that we have all the assistance that we can rely
on as well, I do think that it will help all of us to be a bit more engaged with a lot
of these basic systems.
And that's why I say, yeah, the sign of a healthy economy is a drinkable river, so that
we all are part of that and that all our actions are then evaluated by does
this help towards this drinkable river or not. So this is another element of this distance
and intimacy that I want to do, put for, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think about as you brought up the etymology,
so economics, Eicos, no most management of our home, obviously deeply connected to Eicos,
logos, ecology, knowledge of our home, right? We must know our home before we can think that we can
manage it. But then this question of who is responsible for managing our home. And when we really democratize economic thinking
and co-creating, we realize we are all co-participants
in managing our planetary home with the rivers
and the pollinators and the fungi and all of it, right?
Like we're all collectively managing the health
of our home.
And so again, we can turn towards our ecological handprint
and try to minimize our footprint.
This kind of like live very gently,
but we can also think to our ecological handprint,
that which we're contributing to the planet.
So you went over what makes a river undrinkable.
And I'm sure there's likely a lot of grief
that can come with that, a lot of anger,
a lot of grief that can come with that, a lot of anger, a lot of frustration.
What is it that could turn us towards a drinkable river, a future with drinkable rivers?
What actions, what efforts? I mean, obviously walking on these paths and
getting to know our rivers, but what else? What else might you invite?
Yeah, so if it's infused in all the ways that we're living, so if you are already spending some time with the water,
that will help a lot, right,
to start growing that relationship.
You don't all need to walk, of course,
but to at least spend some time there.
But then to perhaps start first in what makes my heart sing.
And if that's, for instance, gardening,
then see like, okay, what in gardening
can improve the water system? So am I already collecting rain water? Is the ground absorbing
the rain that is falling on the ground? What plants do I have? Am I using still chemicals in the
garden? Can I find alternatives and not use the chemicals?
So by starting somewhere where your heart sings, it will come automatically and you will start to
practice these questions. So the etymology of oicos is not only our home or our household,
and when I dive deeper into it, it is also from habit. And so it's so beautiful
that habit and habit that in this one word, or equals, and in Dutch it's two,
wonem, where we live and gewoamte. And it's not in all languages, but there's
a few other language where it works as well. And so to change our habits into contributing to our home,
and it's also a bit of a bad work.
And so it's the way we eat, you know,
where's our food coming from?
Can we try to eat as low as possible and in season?
And is it chemical free?
Do we eat more plant-based rather than animal-based. The soaps we're using to wash ourselves
or to wash our house, what effects do they have to our waterways? What connections do I
have with my neighbors? Do I already approach them as being part of my river family? You know,
because we share that water literally. And so when I was
connecting with these mouse mayors, the mayors along this river mouse, I
saying, hello mouse mayor, and they looked at me like, huh? It was a new identity
for them, but they understood what I meant to not only be the mayor of the
municipality, but also a part of a river. So, and all these facets of life,
we can make steps towards the drinkable river,
and it will not come immediately everything,
because that will be overwhelming.
That's why I decided not to make any kind of tip list
that never made me into action, didn't mobilize me, but that you stir
yourself from your singing heart to a world with drinkable rivers and by bringing
others along on that journey and adventure and discoveries as well.
You know a sign of a healthy economy should be a drinkable river. I wonder what
other metrics we'd also add. I'm thinking about donut economics and
the social needs being met in that center of the donut and then the planetary boundaries outside
and how it could be reframed in these ways such as including a drinkable river. What others might
you add? What other realms feel connected and also vital to put our attention on?
and also vital to put our attention on. Well, that's what I try now with, that I hope to speak also with more
economists and financial people to really adopt rather than cross-domestic
products striving towards debt where economic growth, whether it's now
conducive to health or not, both of it. It's not, it's, say, a moral right now,
but how, if that is part of the key of the metrics
of our economy, how would that change all our actions?
How would that change investments?
How would that change?
Well, it will change so much.
And if we then look at how this
cross-domestic product started,
the context was that we wanted to get out of
the economic depression after the times of the wars.
But yet, today we're still using that.
And that's something I really hope that that will change
very quickly, actually.
And that maybe it doesn't work
from a central bank perspective immediately
or all the investors,
but maybe via one mayor adopting the vision
of the drinkable river,
or indeed Amsterdam is already the donor of the economy.
And there's many other places, Oxford, along the Thames.
And so if we start to embrace from the coalition of the willing,
those who feel I'm going to adopt this, then bit by bit,
this is how rivers grow as well.
Small streams make big rivers in significant source areas,
feed millions of people ultimately with all the
trips. So this is something really that gives me so much hope thinking like
that's the dynamic of how water flows, how life grows and how movements also grow.
Yeah and also that meandering too, that we you know know, we don't want to have control over a river,
the straightening, but also our movements or our lives even take these meandering paths, right?
I also love thinking about currency and current and money in terms of, you know, we don't want
money to be siphoned off of rivers and into stagnant pools. Like, let's say, you know, tax havens,
right? Instead, we want the water to flow towards needed. So what if money, you know, the
flow of money that it keeps flowing to where it's needed? And there's even an idea of
demorage currency. Liquididity. Liquidity, right?
That money expires.
So like what if money like flowed to where it was needed and we couldn't hold on to it
for too long.
So yeah, it's beautiful to think of the metaphors there, free ecology.
A few other metrics that I would that I think besides a drinkable river, I think of gross
national happiness and this idea of you know, if you were sick
or unwell, how many people could you call on to help you? Or if you had a life celebration,
how many people would come out and celebrate you? Yeah, there's just, I love all these
different metrics that we can invite into our lives to be post-growth both in our systems
and in our ways of living. So, let's, I wanna close with the invitations
that I'm hearing from you.
And I know that you said, this is not a task list,
good not a to-do list, but just uplifting them
in case folks wanna take this with them
as they go forward.
So I heard you invite us to ask what makes our hearts
sing, really, to start with that. I heard an invitation for all of us to get what makes our hearts sing, really to start with that.
I heard an invitation for all of us to get to know our rivers,
get to know our watersheds, our water sources,
but also our rivers.
I was just in the Tualami Hedge Hedge area,
which is where San Francisco water is,
just the past couple days.
So I'm thinking of that beautiful water.
And it feels so far away from here. And then in San Francisco, we have all these rivers that have been paved over,
that we have roads that are paved over. So it's so it's so sad to think about. But getting to know
our rivers, getting to know our watersheds, developing a relationship with our rivers, developing our
costophies, you know, what is your why, what is your deeper compass? Is there a place or a being that helps you direct your actions, your efforts in the world?
Know what is good, what is harmful?
To dip into or explore citizen science, right?
Re-claim science to weave science and spirituality together
to not let our economics or our science just be in the expert realm
but also really participate
in the knowing and also the citizen collection and then distribution of knowledge that you're
really advocating for. And then of course, you know, joining the movement too for a new economy
or regenerative economics, circular economics, post growth, cetera, eco-socialism, right? Just these ways that I think structurally would create
drinkable rivers, right?
Would create less toxins, more relationship with rivers
and waterways.
So any other invitations that you might add?
Yeah, maybe this deal with your shit,
because it's so overwhelming to read everything, the things
we hear, the statistics that come our ways.
And so we physically know on a daily level how to do that.
And so it's also getting a practice and a community to do it more on this, say, the base of
information and the stories, so that we composed it into
being enthusiastic, being so alive that you're really awake, ready to receive, ready to give,
and being enthusiastic. Yeah, so that's, it seems far away from the drink of a river, but it's something I learned as well on how
to do that and also that things don't just become worse going downstream.
You see how local actions, when suddenly wetlands are returned, there's more evotranspiration,
for instance, happening and flow.
And so locally, all these actions do matter.
I notice it when measuring it and seeing it.
So that's also very hopeful and encouraging that even though it looks small on your life
and your community, in your landscape what you're doing, but it hasn't a big effect on the whole
watershed. Beautiful, thank you. And I'll just close with one more quote, this is
a Wendell Berry quote, do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream
due to you. Yeah, beautiful. Well, thank you so much. And yeah, you want to maybe
share what's next for you as you go forth. What are you up to now?
Now that the book is released. Yeah, so yet the book is out via book.drinkablerivers.org. It's meeting the dams river family that's up next.
We're really looking into how to invite also whole community of people who are analyzing our data from our data platform.
We have now 60 different organizations that are measuring in 20 different countries.
So this community, we welcome it to grow.
It's a very diverse group with visitor centers
and water boards and schools that are there.
And so at some point, I wish to have it as diverse as that,
also a group of community that want to analyze that data
and maybe also invite other data platforms
to come and join each other's data platforms.
So that with AI, for instance, we can see many more patterns and that will inform each other.
But that is the citizen science and that people start to adapt it much more.
And so besides the mayors and the aldermen that are now adapting it to have more people adapting it in their lives and teachers in their curriculum and how that could
be something that could grow this movement.
You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Leanne Poe, co-author of Drinkable Ripples, How the River Became My Teacher.
Please check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in today's episode.
Thank you to Mira for the intermission music and to Carolyn Radar for the cover.
Upstream theme music was composed by me, Robbie.
This episode of Upstream has been brought to you by EcoGather, a holder of space between
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