The Gift of Water

The Gift of Water
Issue 353 • November/December 2025

In this issue we focus on one of life’s greatest gifts: fresh water. This precious source of all life is a gift taken for granted by many, and in desperate supply for others. Fresh water can present itself in many forms: locked away in glaciers, buried deep underground, funnelled through pipes to pour out of taps, sold bottled with bubbles, and light as a feather in the clouds.

Robert Macfarlane, the author of Is a River Alive?, opens our themed section with a reminder that fresh water is a fragile life-support system, with an invitation to "think like a river" and remember that "our fate flows with that of water." Gardener Alys Fowler then takes us deep into a glorious blanket bog, looking at the essential regulatory system these fragile habitats provide for 70% of the UK’s drinking water. We also explore water injustice through the lens of the Diné people, as presented by photographer Elliott Ross, and Anna Souter goes In Search of Freshwater in a new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection.

For our feature article, Rob Hopkins invites us into his time machine to reimagine 2030, encouraging us to believe that a shared collective purpose can bring about change. And ahead of COP30 we hear from Monica Piccinini about Brazil’s adoption of bioeconomics.

This issue will take you on many journeys, offering stories to remind you that we are all part of a vast network – one that is sustained and connected by the simple element of water.

Highlights
Brazil’s bioeconomy – hope or hype: Monica Piccinini
Delicious opportunity mode: Rob Hopkins
Nature without precedent: Roman Goergen
Life support: Robert Macfarlane
Magic carpets: Alys Fowler
The way of dance: Satish Kumar