This collection of river literature compiles both classic and cutting-edge essays of twenty-one writers who draw on their wisdom, compassion, and ecological consciousness to create an original and inspiring collection borne from their unique connection with the natural world.
Tales from the River features original writing by award winning authors including Anthony Birch, author of Ghost River, winner of the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing, and cutting-edge prose by Kathleen Dean Moore best known for award-winning books about our cultural and spiritual relation to wet, wild places, and fresh new voices from across the globe.
This connection is shared in stories where, being so focused on the complexities of the river ahead makes the rest of the world completely disappear, and the smoke of a driftwood fire floats in air too thick to carry any sound but the rushing of the river. A canoe is tossed aside and rests akimbo with an aspen branch penetrating its hull, white fog flows down a river as if even the air runs to the sea, and an Aboriginal ‘slum kid’ steals a bike so he can visit a river rich in eucalypt trees that ‘old blackfellas’ had used to make bark canoes, scar trees.
Like Eric Sevareid’s Canoeing with the Cree, Ernest Hemingway’s Big Two-Hearted River, and Edward Abbey’s Down the River, the anthology promises glimpses into history, adventure and magic, and reminds us that the crystal-clear rivers of our childhoods are the way rivers are meant to be.
Editors Donna Mulvenna and Margi Prideaux share a passion for wild spaces as portrayed in the anthology’s dramatic range of environmental writing which offers an insight into rivers across the world, reflected by the varied perspectives of field biologists, environmentalists, wilderness guides, academics, writers, and naturalists.
Tabela de Conteúdo
Foreword, Erik Solheim, Executive Director, UN Environment
Preface, Donna Mulvenna and Margi Prideaux
Introduction
POLAR FRESHWATER
Memories of Hockley Lake, Ron Melchiore
TEMPERATE UPLAND RIVERS
Growing Up With Rivers, Tim Palmer
Seven Rivers, Rob Carney
TEMPERATE COASTAL RIVERS
The Wild Atnarko River, Mary Woodbury
Let the River Run, Wes Ferguson
Kayaking Chile’s Pascua River, Diana Saverin
Prodigal River, Rebecca Lawton
Paddling the Sewershed, Brice Particelli
When a River is a Person, Gary Wockner
Catfish Bend, Lisa Knopp
Upo Wetlands to Doyo Islet, Louise Duff
TEMPERATE FLOODPLAIN RIVERS
Three Water Stories, Anthony Birch
The Willamette, Kathleen Dean Moore
River of the Past, Conor Mihell
The Loner, James Roberts
Three Rivers, Karen Lloyd
Musical Life, Margi Prideaux
TROPICAL UPLAND RIVERS
Wilder Rivers, Donna Mulvenna
TROPICAL FLOODPLAIN RIVERS
On the Negro River, José Truda Palazzo, Jr.
Deafened by Nature, Jessica Groenendijk
The Mother River of India, Mariellen Ward
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Contributing Authors
Rivers are Imperilled
An Invitation from the Publisher
Sobre o autor
Margi Prideaux is an author and international wildlife negotiator. She has written about wildlife in international politics and law almost every day for the past 27 years. As an international negotiator and independent academic, with a Ph D in wildlife policy & law, her words have been tuned to inform policy audiences in more than 20 different international conservation processes.She has three books. Birdsong After the Storm, Global Environmental Governance, Civil Society and Wildlife, and has co-authored All Things Breathe Alike: A Wildlife Anthology. Along the way, her shorter musings have been published online at open Democracy, Global Policy, Live Encounters, Alter Net, Wildlife Articles and Ecologist.
She is a member of the Australian Society of Authors and also a Fellow with the International League of Conservation Writers. As well as writing, she serves as the Policy and Negotiations Director with Wild Migration, Vice-Chair of the CMS Scientific Council Aquatic Wild Meat Working Group, as a Research Associate with the Indo-Pacific Governance Research Centre, and as a Member of the IUCN WCPA Transboundary Conservation Specialist Group and the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Area Taskforce.