4. The Ripple Effect
Locals are training themselves up as 鈥渃itizen scientists鈥� to test the Wye for pollution. The river, they say, is dying. How does this struggle challenge our ideas about ownership?
Walking along the River Wye鈥檚 banks, it seems elegant and everlasting, but beneath the surface all is not well.
In this episode, we meet people living along the river who have trained as 鈥渃itizen scientists鈥� to monitor water pollution themselves. Braving muddy banks and wet feet every week, what drives them to protect a river that they say is dying?
Led by indigenous groups, a movement to recognise the natural world as alive and with rights is gaining momentum around the world. We speak to Mumta Ito, a lawyer for Nature鈥檚 Rights, about how the legal construction of nature as a dead thing - resources that humans can own and extract - goes hand-in-hand with our exploitative economic system today.
Do rivers really belong to us? How can the actions of a small group of determined people reframe our relationships with nature and one another?
Writer, producer and presenter: May Robson
Supervising Producer: Emily Esson
Sound Designer: Steve Urquhart
Theme Music: Contours
Executive Producer: Elizabeth Clark
Now Here is a 麻豆社 Scotland Production for 麻豆社 Sounds Audio Lab
Commissioning Editor: Khaliq Meer
Podcast
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Now Here
Stories of people coming together to fight neighbourhood decline and neglect.
