“Respect the rivers and learn to love them again”, is the fight of Erik Orsenna

Together with Élisabeth Ayrault, former president of the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône, as well as various French and foreign experts and scientists, I created the organization Initiatives for the Future of Great Rivers to save their beauty and vulnerability. Water has always fascinated me, fascinated me, intrigued me.

When I published “The Future of Water”, some criticized me for having too pessimistic a view. Especially about my dear Brittany. However, the events of the previous summer, with my department of Côtes-d’Armor, confirmed my diagnosis. The French are a bit like children…

Together with Élisabeth Ayrault, former president of the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône, as well as various French and foreign experts and scientists, I created the organization Initiatives for the Future of Great Rivers to save their beauty and vulnerability. Water has always fascinated me, fascinated me, intrigued me.

When I published “The Future of Water”, some criticized me for having too pessimistic a view. Especially about my dear Brittany. However, the events of the previous summer, with my department of Côtes-d’Armor, confirmed my diagnosis. The French are quite spoiled children. They think that all you have to do is turn on the faucet to get water. However, I used to say that, if anything, God created the water but not the pipes or the filters.

Solutions do exist, however. This is why I took a tour in France of solutions that brought me to Occitania. Then I will go to New Aquitaine to meet its president Alain Rousset, then the other regions.

You ask your reader the question: “Instead of a lake or instead of a river?” To you, the answer seems obvious.

Not much. It’s true that I know rivers better, but I also like lakes. Did you know that the Rhône passes under Lake Geneva to reach Lausanne? No form of water is indifferent to me, neither vapor nor ice.

My biggest regret is that I haven’t met Russia’s rivers, including the magnificent Amur River that traces the border of China and Russia for 1,600 kilometers. I promised myself to go there when the terrible war in Ukraine was over. I’m afraid to wait a long time.

“The Organization for the Development of the Senegal River deserves the Nobel Peace Prize”

Speaking of war, you show how a river can be used as a weapon.

It is not from today. To defeat the enemy, some generals did not hesitate to poison the rivers, to dry them up or, on the contrary, to cause floods. Turkey built dams on the Euphrates that diverted water to Iraq and Syria. That said, it’s a deterrent that isn’t used as much as you might think because it can backfire.

One of the most interesting cases concerns the Nile, which originates 80% from the mountains of Ethiopia. The country’s government built a dam to support 100 million people. However, this dam threatens Egypt’s neighbor, not to mention Sudan, in the middle. If they wanted, the Ethiopians would have drained Egypt, which could have started a war.

Another example, in Calcutta, the mayor of the city sent me a message for the Bangladeshi government, asking it to stop exporting its poor. If India hadn’t built its dam on the Ganges, we wouldn’t be here, a country spokesman replied. This dam really destroyed the rice fields and the farmers migrated to India.

This is one of the messages of my book. If the Earth is thirsty, it will starve because, without water, there will be no agriculture to feed billions of people.

China, which weighs 20% of the world’s population, has only 6% of its water resources.

So the pharaonic infrastructure works in the country and the need to get water elsewhere, like in Laos, but above all, for decades, in Tibet, the great reservoir of water on the planet. Except that in Tibet, as elsewhere in the world, glaciers are melting due to global warming.

“In France, the awareness around the rivers seems to be there. At the world level, I am not very optimistic”

You pay tribute to the management of the Senegal River.

In March 1972, Senegal, Mauritania and Mali, joined in 2006 by Guinea, created the Organization for the Development of the Senegal River, intended to regulate the flow, generate electricity or promote agriculture. It remains a very rare model of hydro-diplomacy and good governance that has survived the political or military upheavals occurring in these countries. This organization deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Regarding the relationship between water and agriculture, what do you think of the conflict in the Deux-Sèvres basin?

Should we conserve water? Yes. Should everyone save water? Yes too. But water does not have the same soil, anywhere in France, so the answer cannot be Jacobin, meaning falling from Paris, the same for everyone. We are witnessing the clash of two ideologies: those who want to produce as before and those who should not be touched by water. Finally, I think that when something is voted and legal, it is not normal for a small group to question this decision and common law.

What is your podium of the rivers of the world?

I’ll give the gold medal to the Amazon because it’s the longest and most threatened river. Because part of my family is Brazilian. And because the river and the forest are inseparable. I have much affection for the Trieux, my little Breton river, the first on which I sailed and fished. And then came the Rhône and the Loire which are very different but I like both as much as the others. Honestly, I can’t choose.

In a column in Le Monde, which is included in the book, you mentioned solutions to save rivers.

There are many solutions that first go through a certain number of rules: respect the rivers because they are not garbage dumps, save their deltas, expect their rarity, learn to love them again, that’s what many cities do, including Bordeaux. In France, the awareness seems to be there. Globally, I’m not very optimistic.

“The Earth is thirsty”, by Erik Orsenna, ed. Fayard, 432 pages, €23.