Dear Humans,
I hope this message finds you still listening – still willing to remember what you’ve forgotten.
I am writing to offer you a new perspective on a topic that you’ve heard far too much about. And for good reason.
Although my family and I feed you, provide you with fresh water, oxygen, and countless other essentials – although we gift you calmness and peace – you still mock us in the same way you have for generations.
We cradle your trade routes, offer you employment in fisheries and tourism, and carry your restless vessels across our backs. We’ve seen you at your best and at your worst. We’ve watched you destroy our mothers and pollute our fathers and yet, we open our arms to give you minerals, energy, and medicine. Still you pour poison into our veins, straighten our curves with concrete, choke our beds with plastic, and ask us to endure more.
You’ve forgotten: when rivers die, civilizations falter. When we slow, ecosystems collapse. When we vanish, so do your crops, your food, your songbirds. Our great Mother always watches still. She listens to the mumbling under your breath.
Restoration is no longer a luxury. It is your survival.
But do not despair – for we can be healed.
You have begun.
I have heard the song of the Elwha River in Washington, rushing freely again after dams were removed. I’ve felt the gentle return of salmon to streams in Oregon, guided by tribal hands that never forgot our rhythms. In London, the Thames – once declared biologically dead – breathes again. In Kenya, mangroves grow back where once there were only stumps.
You have the tools. Let our banks swell again with native trees. Tear down the walls that block our flow. Cleanse us with wetlands and green filters, not chemicals. Listen to the wisdom of those who’ve lived beside us longest.
This is how restoration begins: Not with grand gestures, but with care. Not with ownership, but with kinship.
And if you do – one day may your children walk along my shores and hear frogs sing where silence reigned. They’ll watch otters twist through eelgrass and taste berries fed by clean, soft earth. Their lungs will fill with oxygen carried on mist rising from a river fully alive.
We are not your enemy.
We are your beginning.
And, if you choose wisely, we can still be your future.
Sincerely,
The River’s Daughter.
Works Cited
https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/elwha-ecosystem-restoration.htm https://critfc.org/salmon-culture/tribal-salmon-culture/
https://seatrees.org/pages/mangrove-planting-projects?utm_term=mangrove+conservation+proje ct&utm_campaign=&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=4453187748&hsa_ca m=22045033102&hsa_grp=171051355663&hsa_ad=725932903582&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd 1654603694555&hsa_kw=mangrove+conservation+project&hsa_mt=p&hsa_net=adwords&hsa _ver=3&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22045033102&gbraid=0AAAAAB7OnBiQuFuBtjPi
NDQQndCxw9Uj0&gclid=CjwKCAjw1dLDBhBoEiwAQNRiQSRBipqfkZ2BPMMxuSQcoHn 5lqv5GHb5V0v2LSmfks78YEeMofYoLhoCSPwQAvD_BwE
The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect nor represent the Earth Chronicles and its editorial board.
