Paul Powlesland is a force of nature and a force for nature. He brought his unique brand of thoughtful deliberation, purposeful action and campaigning zeal to our spring meeting. What food for thought!
Paul Powlesland lives on a boat on the the River Roding which flows from near Stansted airport to meet the Thames at Barking. It’s the third largest river in London but, when he moved there, no one – no government agency, no organisation – was responsible for it. It is a responsibility he has taken, appointing himself river guardian and, in the process, learning from and with the river.
At our AGM in April, he talked about what it meant to him to be a river guardian and he reflected on the rights of nature movement – very relevant to the Darent since Sevenoaks District Council passed a motion to recognise the rights of the Darent last year.
What does our treatment of rivers say about our society?
He started in lyrical fashion, showing a beautiful stretch of an ancient channel of the River Roding. When England was young, this river was old, he said. Even in the lifetime of his great grandparents, the Roding had been an open flowing river used by boats and home to wildlife, communities, beauty and joy.
“What did our society do to that river?” he asked. “In just the lifetime of my great grandparents, for reasons that no one can really say, we destroyed it. We completely filled it in during the 20th century. Not even culverted. Just filled the whole lot in, built a gasworks over part of it. And now, the memory of that river is completely gone. Almost nobody in the local area even knows about it.
“And I think it says a lot about our society that we were able to do that to such an ancient being,” he added.
The problem, he said, lies with an ideology that sees nature as a dead resource, something to be taken from, dumped into, used by humans. It isn’t alive, it doesn’t have its own interests and it is in no way sacred. He described his realisation that, while the work done by volunteers for rivers is great, there’s a need to challenge this underlying ideology and recognise that nature is alive.
“Our greatest duty, and some might say, our joy as humans, is to be stewards and guardians of nature, enriching life for the benefit of all.”
Our fundamental connection to nature
Paul is a barrister and founder of Lawyers for Nature, passionate about protecting and representing the natural world and all who seek to defend it. He explained the rights of nature movement as having risen out of the indigenous worldview that we are fundamentally connected to nature, that nature is alive and that it has its own interests.
“Can rights of nature work in a country like the UK, where we’ve lost that vision and don’t have that deep connection to land anymore?” he asked.
He thinks it can because the idea of guardianship, of connection to nature, is cultural, not genetic and is rooted in action. “Anyone can step into that relationship. No matter who you are, no matter what your background is, and crucially, no matter where your river is.”
He described how he himself started to take action: “What’s interesting about this journey of guardianship is that I never intended it to happen. Mostly I just wanted a mooring, and then, to do some, light community projects. There was a lot of rubbish around me. Nobody clears up the tide or reed beds on London’s third biggest river, they just get ever more polluted with plastic pollution. So, I began cleaning that up.”
He talked about how he started clearing rubbish and gradually was joined by others from the community. Over time, he created improvements in habitats and flows. He has prompted action on some of the most damaging sewage outflows, armed with intricate knowledge of the river and data that he himself collected.
Recognition of the need for detailed data and for trade-offs
What was fascinating to hear was how Paul combines a sense of personal responsibility with careful thought over the most successful way to achieve the right outcome for the river. In putting forward the rights of the river, he recognised that the needs of the river may conflict with the needs of a community, so inevitably there will be trade-offs. He believes actions taken to restore our rivers need to be based on a clear understanding of the severity of particular problems, so it can be directed to where it will have the most impact. This is as true for responding to statements about the rivers’ right to flow as it is for tackling the appalling problem of sewage dumping from water companies.
His conclusions are very relevant to the Darent. Our society DRiPS has been successful because we seek to support our arguments for action with solid scientific underpinning from recognised experts in their field. As the river faces threat from the changing climate and increased demand for water from a growing number of homes, we have turned to an expert again. We will publish more news on this soon.
Meanwhile, please support us by joining our society. Membership is just £10 per year.
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