We began 2025 celebrating the gift of life. Now as the year draws to a close, and many of us begin to think about gifting, the focus of this issue is one of life’s greatest gifts: fresh water. Humans are more than 50% water, yet less than 3% of the planet’s water is fresh. Even more shockingly, less than half of this is available in its liquid form.

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 an endless network of pipes to pour out of taps, sold bottled with extra bubbles, and light as a feather in the clouds above us.

Who better to explore fresh water and open the theme pages than Robert Macfarlane, author of Is a River Alive? In his essay he reminds us that fresh water is a fragile life-support system and one that has sadly become a ‘liquid asset’. He suggests that it is time for us to “think like a river” and to remember that “our fate flows with that of water.” Gardener and writer Alys Fowler then takes us deep into a glorious blanket bog, and looks at the essential filtering and regulatory system these fragile habitats provide for 70% of the UK’s drinking water. We explore water injustice through the lens of the Diné people, as presented by photographer Elliot Ross, and Anna Souter goes In Search of Freshwater in a new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection.

For our slow read, Rob Hopkins, a co-founder of the Transition movement, invites us into his time machine to reimagine 2030 and encourages us to believe that a shared collective purpose and excitement can bring about change. Ahead of COP30 we hear from Monica Piccinini about Brazil’s adoption of bioeconomics. We also pay tribute to the late environmental activist Joanna Macy.

This issue will take you on many different journeys, open your eyes to other communities, and share multiple stories, all of which will remind you that we are part of a vast network, one that is sustained and connected by the simple element of water.

We leave you with these words from Elif Shafak: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

The Editorial Team