00:00Now why would someone want to marry a river?
00:05I love this river, I love this place.
00:08It's not an easy marriage, but I don't think any marriage is.
00:11A beautiful river that's heavily polluted.
00:15Wellies, there's tennis balls, you name it, you get everything.
00:23The river that's tying the knot is the Avon in southern England.
00:28Meggie calls herself Britain's first river bride.
00:32May your love for this water never dim, but only grow stronger as the years pass.
00:40Meggie, I pronounce you married and committed to this beautiful and precious body of water, the river Avon.
00:49Meggie is committed.
00:50She says she'll do everything she can to protect the river,
00:54a pledge she made three years ago in a symbolic wedding.
00:58It's here she swims, rain or shine, despite the fact that the Avon ranks among the country's most polluted rivers.
01:08Officially, bathing is prohibited.
01:14We think that the river looks clean now, but I do know that it's not as clean as it could
01:18be.
01:18The truth is we don't fully know what the state of the river's health is now,
01:24because we don't have a sound and functioning regulation system checking regularly what the health of the river is saying
01:33and how it's fluctuated.
01:37River swimming is becoming increasingly popular in Britain, mounting pressure on authorities to act.
01:47There's some chemicals and pollutants in this river that we don't even have the testing technology for yet.
01:53So, we need that.
01:57Meggie isn't alone in her concern.
02:00So-called river guardians patrol the banks of their beloved waterways all across Britain.
02:05They say authorities are falling short on testing, which is why they are taking matters into their own hands.
02:15The guardians publish their findings and flag heavily polluted areas for the authorities.
02:26The decline has been stopped because the amount of chemicals being used by farmers has been reduced.
02:33But is it getting better? Yes.
02:36But in a very qualified way, it is under surveillance, and it's a patient, and it's a person, and we
02:42care about her, and we've got to look after her.
02:49In Bath, a city in southern England, Meggie and her fellow environmentalists are celebrating passage of the non-partisan River
02:57Charter.
02:59In it, Bath and eight other municipalities have committed themselves to protecting the river.
03:05The people of this country are very concerned about the state of our rivers, and are very angry about the
03:11state of our rivers.
03:12So the reason why we feel that we need to have this charter is to give us a bit of
03:17integrity,
03:18to give us a bit of momentum to actually build up a grassroots feeling so that people are aware that
03:26the river is under threat.
03:28Now we're moving into the implementation period, which is where we're going to put all of these rights into action.
03:34None of them are legally binding, but they all point to existing environmental laws.
03:40One path is for the British government to grant the river legal personhood, much like New Zealand and Spain did
03:47for nature reserves.
03:49Environmentalists would then have the right to sue on behalf of the river.
03:57In the present we can protect the river if the pollution affects us, so we are protecting ourselves.
04:03This idea is to start changing the legal culture, and I think the UK is ready, and Europe is ready,
04:10to embrace protecting nature for itself.
04:18Meggie and the river guardians hope their approach will inspire other environmental groups, throughout Britain and beyond.
04:28After all, dirty rivers are everywhere.
04:33They're confident their work will bring the change that's needed.
04:44What we're moving towards is having another thriving river again, flowing through our community.
04:51But we don't know what a truly thriving river actually looks like in this country anymore.
04:57Which is quite sad to think about.
04:59But also exciting to think that maybe we'll be the generation that starts to see that coming.
05:05To make it happen, the river will need Meggie's support, in good times and bad.
05:16Is it pretty funny that we'll show up here to the the river and the river?
05:17You feel that they don't have a definet
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