For hundreds of years, from the high and ornate ceilings of the Exeter Quay Custom House, eels shaped from plaster with beady eyes have looked down upon all those who pass beneath. Today, the eels see something that draws their attention - two circles of beings in unusual dress. Their backs against the walls in silence, human beings sit still and attentive to bear witness. In the centre, sprawled, lying, perched, rooted, and standing, all manner of river beings are gathered. Great black and glassy eyes sit atop a mottled frog’s face. A shining blue cloak rides the graceful slide of kingfisher’s wings. The rippling shells of blue mussel and pacific oyster sit side by side, no hint of their somewhat tense relationship. Meadowsweet's tall, soft, and undulating flowers play gently with the breeze, drifting in through a large wooden window.

Leading the day, two women stand upright, one dressed in rich, woven hues of blue, the other holds a driftwood staff bound in reeds. Lucy Neal and Kate Jago are Water and River:

"We have gathered to listen to our kin - species of the River Exe.  We’ll be going into the unknown - stepping into a place of possibility and play: shared listening, deep attention and reflection.As Convenors - river and water - we will hold this space openly, hearing from each being. Is it possible to weave the story of our shared ‘beingness’ and kinship? Could a Covenant for the River Exe emerge?  That holds our ‘samenesses’ and our differences equally in mind?  That others might learn of our shared story?"

At this, a cacophony of murmurs, squawks, ruffles, shakes, and thumps fill the room. We have assent, it appears, to continue. I say "appears" quite intentionally. For my role, and that of my collaborator standing next to me, is to translate and note down what is expressed here. Costumed in somewhat bookish attire, our inspiration is the clerk of Quaker tradition. Quakers are an egalitarian and peace-loving Christian sect, centuries practised in listening. In business meetings, which are also guided by the spirit, the clerk does not simply capture what is said, but minutes in such a way that all can agree on substance and wording. That is our role, to capture expressions of river beings so that we can move towards a covenant, or formal agreement, between them and their human witnesses. But what do we minute in response to shuffles and squawks?

Other than the moment of the Autumn Equinox at 1.43pm, as the changing season is marked by equilibrium between day and night, little is certain. But for all the planning and preparation, this is part of the design. Months of conversations have built on years of experience, and the notable legacy of the Council of All Beings, from which this Assembly takes inspiration. In the Council of All Beings - a sacred sharing space for humans to embody the species with which we share the earth - participants grieve for the impacts humans have on other beings and remember our interdependence. Developed by Joanna Macy and John Seed, the Council was in turn born from teachings of Buddhism and Deep Ecology. Today's Assembly is guided by the experience of artist and activist Anne-Marie Culhane working with Friends of the River Exe and the support of Lucy Neal.

There are some differences with the Council of All Beings. Rather than participants moving through the landscape to allow any being to inspire them, the organisers have worked with the Wildlife Trust and the Biodiversity Records Office to present a list of diverse local riverine species which are found in different parts of the Exe catchment. Then, time given to participants to inhabit their being was in-depth, with three workshops the day before the Assembly. In the first workshop, river beings are introduced to the structure and form of the Assembly and are invited to rehearse what and how they might communicate their story. In the second, sounds, movements, character and behaviours and relationships of and between river beings are explored with a local nature expert and guided by an artist. In the third workshop, masks and costumes are made together with artists, formed from found and natural materials and paints, cardboard, glue and thread. Among the river beings, and apart from the human witnesses, there is a human-as-river-being, who will also come to speak. But the most striking move, one that speaks to a rapidly growing global movement in rights of nature, is that of forming a covenant or formal agreement among species.

I sit with pen and paper poised. I wait, anticipating any manner of expression that might come to echo in these walls. An invitation is made to the beings of the River Exe: tell us your story, tell us what harms you, and what brings you flourishing. As I explain to the Assembly in a simple definition, these are unique to each here. A flourishing creature, whose needs are met and suffers no harm, will be a healthy creature, growing and thriving. A creature is harmed when it is deprived of something it needs; when its wellbeing is impacted and its capacities to live well are taken away.

Tall, graceful, calling across the room, Heron ruffles her great grey wings, and begins to tell a story in human words (making my job a lot easier). She is flourishing, it is true. Unlike so many beings here, amidst sewage, run-off, rising temperatures, and rubbish, Heron still finds a place. But all is not well. For in bearing witness to the suffering of others, she too suffers. The Herring gull, draped in dashing white, cannot find rest for urbanisation of land near the river. Sphagnum moss, in a haunting crested green mask, still thrives, but she shares concern with the rare river jelly lichen for increasing dry spells over summer. Osprey, once locally extinct, has returned through concerted human effort. And Beaver is making a comeback too. The Beaver needs space, and trust to change the landscape the way they see fit. Each has a unique story.

Take Salmon, who sits in a long head-mask with a hooked jaw and bright orange eyes. Noted since pre-Roman times, Salmon were once many in the Exe. Just as they have thrived for all the Exe provides, their ancestors have fed so many in return, their presence a gift to human and river beings alike. Yet now, to get up river as adults to their spawning grounds, and to head down river as young smolts, they must pass at least 15 weirs. Only two are suitable for year-round passage. Add to this the loss of cooling trees at the riverside, rising temperatures due to climate change, non-native and predatory species, untreated sewage, industrial pollution, and run-off from farms. Any of these changes alone might not be so dire, yet, together they place salmon and many others at risk of disappearing from the Exe altogether. For all that stands in their way, it is remarkable that the salmon still return to make their ever more arduous journey.

If each being's story is unique, what holds them together are the changes in the river. These changes are shared by rivers all over the world. At this point, you might expect me to list a bunch of statistics that we know should be horrifying, yet feel somehow disconnected from. But we all know the facts already, or have a pretty good idea. We are water, we need it, all life around us does. Yet we poison it. Reminding ourselves of the facts has shown itself weak medicine for what ails us. That is precisely the point of this exercise: to know, to feel, to live a story. That is why we ask Salmon to speak, not as a species, but as a being. In becoming Salmon, in speaking as, listening to, feeling with Salmon, we might instigate a change in perception that reaches far deeper than any statistics. 

One of the most touching moments in the Assembly was when the human-as-river-being expressed herself. Cloaked in blue overalls, reeds tied to her back cast gentle shadows across her face. With tears in her eyes, she spoke of deep regret at the suffering humans had imposed upon the other river beings, and a desire to make things right. In hearing this, My current lessons of you, the water flea, told us that her bitterness and judgement towards humans had softened. It seemed to me we all, river beings and witnesses, shared a moment of heartfelt grief and connection - a rare, and unexpected invitation to feel the pain of what we know in a safe and welcoming space. 

In doing this together, we build movement toward a larger transformation. Part of that transformation, in my not-so-humble opinion, depends on bridges across worlds that we form in becoming river beings and bearing witness: healthy relations between intuition and reason, between values and facts, between a lived connection to the natural world and the political institutions we engage to govern it.

It is a bridge of this sort we are about to cross in our Assembly, as I stand to read out the harms I have translated from a conversation of human and more-than-human language. My colleague, Clare, stands to list what brings flourishing. In bringing together all that has been said, the spaces between can be felt and added to our treasure. What strikes me at that moment is the way the scientific and spiritual are brought together. In the same breath, they speak of habitat destruction and care, water temperatures and empathy, bioavailable oxygen and love, treatment stations and the living essence of water. The lines we have drawn through centuries of modernity make no mark in the water, where all is diffuse and mixture. But it is to the lines we return, as we make our marks in oak gall ink on a scroll that fills the floor.

I have been into these ideas for a while. So much so that I am taken by surprise when I meet someone who has not heard of Rights of Nature. So best to spell it out for a moment here with the example of rivers. The most famous case, and the first national law for river rights, was the Te Awa Tupua Act 2017. This agreement between the Aotearoa New Zealand state and indigenous Māori tribe states that: “Te Awa Tupua is an indivisible and living whole from the mountains to the sea, incorporating the Whanganui River and all of its physical and metaphysical elements”. It has “all the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal person”. In a unique institutional arrangement, the state and the Maori share guardianship of the river. In simple terms, this river can stand up for its rights in court if needed. Ideally, some agreement is reached without the court’s involvement.

The idea has taken off. Though overturned, the Ganges and Yamuna in India were recognised as legal persons in 2017. The Yurok tribe in California gave personhood to the Klamath river in 2019. Bangladesh in that same year granted all its rivers personhood. The Mar Menor lagoon in Spain, the Yarra in Australia, and the Atrato among many others in Colombia have all been granted personhood. The Universal Declaration of River Rights achieves more signatures everyday. And the broader Rights of Nature movement, offering rights to mountains, forests, ecosystems, and even waves on the sea (!) is much larger than rivers alone. Communities, businesses, cities, municipalities, nations, and global organisations are taking note.

Does it work? The most vocal proponents admit that it is too early to tell. To take another example, the commitment of nations all over the world to human rights has surely been far from a guarantee. To support such rights, cultural acceptance was required, and then complex legal systems and procedures to have any chance of prosecution. This is apart from the measures in place throughout society to ensure human rights are respected in the first place. Then there are existing environmental laws, which either come up short or are not enforced. Serious questions abound. In my own evaluation, the role of Rights of Nature and rivers is two-fold: first, they are an inspiration and intervention at the cultural level, provoking people to think differently about the world they inhabit, and to recognise an increasing awareness of our place in and as nature. Second, such rights are part of a complex and evolving fight to protect the natural world we have left. This includes connected campaigns for river protection, such as that for Drinkable Rivers, now with a Thames project, and Friends of the Dart in increasing bathing sites and testing.

So what does this mean here in the UK, and for our covenant for the river Exe? This might surprise you, but there is a burgeoning river rights movement here (see also this great UK toolkit from Kings College). At the recent March for Clean Water in London, organised by River Action, I was fascinated to see the breadth of support for rivers, from environmentally concerned farmers to swimmers, kayakers, and conservationists. Throughout the speeches, the theme of spiritual connection returned, the sacred moment in which we lose ourselves, immersed in this larger living world. Speaking directly to this was Paul Powlesland of Lawyers for Nature. In swearing his juror's oath in court on the River Roding, he said: "I told him [the judge] the river was effectively my god, and that I hold the river to be sacred". To hear sentiments such as these while standing by the Houses of Parliament in a crowd 15,000 strong suggests some changes are afoot. 

At our Assembly of River Beings, the same Paul Powlesland stands to address a much more intimate setting. The river beings have now scrawled, scratched, and smudged their marks upon the covenant. The human witnesses have signed also. What does this mean? Legally, this means nothing at all, he reminds us. At the same time, this might be the most important document ever written for the Exe. Wherever it lies between these possibilities depends on us and how we step forward. Where humans truly believe in these agreements and personally take on the roles of guardians, then real change can happen. How this may show up in our lives may be different for all of us, Paul tells us - but if we hold the river to be sacred and act accordingly, this covenant may come to have a power we do not yet know. 

Such sentiments are well heeded by an increasing number of community projects around the world, in Europe - such as a debate in Ireland on the inclusion of rights of nature in their constitution - and here in the UK. The Bioregional Learning Centre led a Charter for the River Dart in Devon, the Friends of the Cam in Cambridge reissue their call for the rights of the Cam every year to crowds of supporters, a by-law for the river Frome in Somerset was passed (though now overruled). The River Don Project campaigns for "new legal, economic, and democratic frameworks" in South Yorkshire, Green Party motions have been submitted for the Rivers Arun and Ems in Sussex, and a guardian for the River Usk in Bannau Brycheiniog National Park sits on its Catchment Partnership. 

Key to these efforts is not a naive assumption that passing a motion or law will create the changes needed. It is a faith that bridging a vital relationship to rivers with the cultural and institutional change required will bring fruit. The Exe assembly sits amidst a wave of experimentation and development of the Council of All Beings, connecting the approach to decision-making. On the River Roding, for example, Moral Imaginations worked with Defra Futures, Policy Lab, the Catchment Partnership, and Paul Powlesland as the river’s guardian to engage freshwater planning to 2043 in an Interspecies Council. And more advanced than many, Lewes District Council passed a motion in 2023 to explore river rights, develop a charter, and consider its endorsement for the River Ouse by 2025. For the Ouse now in their 3-year pilot phase, this means considering methods such as Citizen's Assemblies that can support and legitimise representation of the river. 

Not all are of one mind in this. Supporting legal personhood does not imply that one relates to a river as a person, let alone the species around it as beings. Neither does relating to river beings mean one supports legalistic approaches to change; these can, after all, provoke a backlash as much as inspire - many people have been granted rights over nature and so may object. What I want to get across in this article, if nothing else, is that all around the UK and across the world, people are thinking, feeling, and acting differently towards their rivers. The contribution of the Assembly of River Beings on the Exe in the first place was to transform those who took part, in the second to bring about a document that can travel. The next step is to take it further, from transforming experience into words, taking words onto paper, making this document into a lever for change. The hope is by taking this covenant out into the world, but carrying with it something of the lived experience that formed it, more and more people can come to know themselves as river beings. Perhaps today you have taken a step towards that too.

The Assembly of River Beings was funded by LUSH and Arts Council of England and was initiated and designed by Anne-Marie Culhane working with Friends of the River Exe (FORE) with support from Lucy Neal. Contributors included Clare Jeffery, Gill Westcott and Thomas Rickard, Neil Williams (River Rights Network) Paul Powlesland (Lawyers for Nature), Emily Spraggon (Wildlife Trust), Kate Jago, Assembly of River Beings artists: Ruth Webb, Shelley Castle, Jo Salter, Ione Maria Rojas and the Biodiversity Records Office. The Assembly was supported by a team of FORE stewards - Mary Culhane, Sally Chapman, Lou Doliczny, Ellen Stuart, Florence Lock - and hosted at Exeter Custom House by Art Work Exeter

This article was authored by Thomas Rickard, with input from FORE. Originally published on Tidelines.