Photo: Leeway Collective
“Wildlife, with its will to live, always provides inspiration. Life is resilient and finds a way to bypass obstacles we humans produce daily.” – Leeway Collective
In Greece, they call her Aoös, and she has been a worshipped river since the dawn of time. But the dawn of time means little or nothing to those who don’t see beauty where we might, and instead see power or money. And those who see this power or money have no qualms damming worshipped rivers for immediate gains, despite the irreparable damage it will cause to an entire ecosystem.
Therefore the Leeway Collective took this opportunity to explore Aoös, or Vjosa, in all her glory: “Being able to experience a free flowing river and follow her flow for 270 km makes you a different person. A river in Europe still provides experience like this. In Greece, where she starts her path and carves the most amazing deep canyons they call her Aoos, in Albania, where her flow gets bigger and finally reaches the Ionian Sea, they call her Vjosa. Nature there still is the one in charge – riverbed changes seasonally with high waters, animals and plants thrive in places without human presence and even near towns that are situated just on the riverbanks.”
Photo: Leeway Collective
They then took their exploration of the river and turned it into a means to spread the good word about Vjosa and the surrounding region in an effort to protect the last free flowing river in Europe.
“To some, river flow is just something that waits to be squeezed in the power cable so we can produce more and more and more,” the Collective laments. “They are the ones that don’t nourish their own garden — have different dreams and don’t open their tents in the morning.”
And as energy becomes an increasingly pressing issue, these one track-minded types are exploring ALL options, including ill-advised routes of damming, ill-advised as proven by the un-damming currently happening in the United States. The river’s voice, through the people who live along the banks, needs to be heard.
Photo: Leeway Collective
WE are the river’s voice. For WE are the people who live along the banks. And WE need to be heard.
“We have to dream big in order to make big things possible.”
Keep dreaming, folk.
Photo: Leeway Collective
Read the full story and see additional photos on Leeway Collective.
