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The Big Fix

After centuries of dam building, a nationwide movement to dismantle these aging barriers is showing how free-flowing rivers can restore ecosystems, improve safety, and reconnect people with nature.

Marinette County could well become a model of sustainability. However, sprawling development may impede its progress as the next iteration of an economic threat to ecosystems.

Rewetting and restoring wetlands, building small dams, and restoring streams create landscape-level discontinuities that interrupt how fire propagates by putting water back into the land rather than letting it run off. EcoAtivo is one organisation putting this directly into practice.

For 6,000 years, human societies have sought to control water through ever-larger infrastructure. As climate change brings more extreme floods, droughts and heatwaves, a growing number of cities are exploring a different path: adapting to water’s rhythms rather than trying to dominate them.

We’re talking dam removal today. So grab a sledge hammer, a few sticks of dynamite, and a wrecking ball, and come along as we explore the battle between concrete placement and concrete removal. And don’t miss our interview with Tara Lohan, author of Undammed: Freeing Rivers and Bringing Communities to Life.

Eight years ago, the Ecosystem Restoration Communities (ERC) movement began with a simple but powerful belief: that everyday people everywhere could restore the land beneath their feet and, in doing so, restore hope for our shared future.

Thus, although rewilding is often thought of as keeping humans “away”, in fact, people must be integrated into much of the rewilding process, living alongside and allowing space for “wildness”.

“There were times over the past 20 years when we weren’t sure this would happen,” James said. “But we never gave up hope. We took a stance and said, ‘We love our river. We love our fish. We love our natural resources. We love our culture. And we’re not shy about showing it.’ That’s what Blue Creek means to us. That’s who we are.”

Almost everything we’re doing to cause climate change involves technology. So, predictably, we’re looking to alternative technologies to solve what is arguably the biggest dilemma humanity has ever created for itself. What if more technology will actually worsen the problem in the long run? In this article we will see why trees, soil, and biodiversity are our real lifelines.

With the tenacity of salmon swimming home, Un-dam the Klamath is liberating their river before our eyes.