What role do rivers play in your life? For billions of people around the world, they are – literally – their source of life and survival. Although rivers cover less than one percent of the Earth’s surface, they are the most biodiverse and productive ecosystems in the world. In this post, Félix Feider looks at the much overlooked role that rivers and freshwater ecosystems can play in combatting the impacts of climate change and invites us to rethink the importance of freshwater biodiversity conservation as a tool to help us with that struggle.
Imagine your survival was dependent on a healthy free-flowing river – how would you feel if that river dried up? This is the reality that millions of people are already facing: mighty rivers, such as the Colorado, the Indus, the Murray, or the Yellow River, now frequently run dry before reaching the sea. In the UK, the source of the River Thames recently dried up for the first time in living memory, and major rivers all over Europe are currently