The river is a powerful symbol of life. The Living Rivers Festival aims to promote the significance of healthy rivers from catchment to the sea. The theme 'living rivers' encompasses our hopes and visions for restoration and healing the relationships between the human community to the environment. The festival aims to build awareness of existing work in eco-restoration, and further develop the community's relationship to and responsibility for the future vitality of our river ecosystems.

As we enter another millennium more people are conscious of the need for ecological restoration. This will be an important task for humanity

At the 6th World Wilderness Congress recently the United Nations was called upon to declare the 21st Century the Century for Restoring the Earth - to counter the negative perceptions of the future prospects for our planet.

Our week-long festival, in southern Tasmania, centred around International Rivers Day:- March 14 2000, celebrated the renewal of the human spirit through the practical restoration of our degraded ecosystems.

A great range of events was organised for the festival.  Refer to our ‘program of events’ page for details.