What is your motivation for joining the River Intellectuals Team?
The biggest motivation is the fact that many rivers over the world have been heavily modified by humans for hundreds of years and are therefore declared to be one of the most endangered habitat types. The increasing threats to rivers raise the motivation to restore river habitats and ecological continuity to enable fish free movements.
Why should we defend these wild rivers?
Only free-flowing rivers create favourable conditions for the survival and dispersal of aquatic organisms, enable sediment flow, balance thermal and flooding regimes, but also enable dynamic ecosystem. Human made in-river impoundments alter the main characteristics of lotic ecosystems, cause geophysical and hydro-morphological changes. Barriers have therefore a direct impact on the aquatic living species, biological interactions and ecological processes both upstream and downstream. Only wild and free flowing river can benefits aquatic life, people and economy.