Why Drinkable Rivers?
The Woodstock Land Conservancy (WLC) is proud to name Drinkable Rivers by Li An Phoa and Maarten Van Der Schaaf as our 2026 Book of the Year and the featured selection in our Conversations in Conservation series. This selection honors our 2025 Program Theme: Ecologies of Water.
Part travelogue, part urgent call to action, Drinkable Rivers invites readers to journey with Phoa – environmentalist, educator and advocate – as she explores the deep connections between people and the waterways that sustain them. In 2005, she paddled the full length of Canada’s Rupert River, drinking directly from its waters. Just three years later, she returned to find them transformed, no longer safe to drink. Deeply disturbed by this environmental shift, Phoa hears the calling and begins to advocate for cleaner water worldwide.
Reflecting WLC’s mission to connect people with the land and water around them, Drinkable Rivers offers a global view of a profoundly local concern. It reminds us that healthy rivers are a universal necessity and a shared responsibility, one that calls for collaboration, respect for Indigenous knowledge and a willingness to rethink our relationship with nature.
To deepen the conversation, The Film & Disc Series event will be "One Blue World" featuring Phoa as one of the contributors. WLC will host a separate event featuring the documentary Drinkable Meuse, followed by a conversation with local river stewards Mary McNamara and Jennifer Zackin about our own Sawkill Creek. Along with WLC, Zackin will present “Mapping the Sawkill” in fall of 2026 in tandem with the Woodstock Artist Association and Museum. The event will feature a series of water-related free workshops to help Mid Hudson Valley residents deepen their understanding of local water.
Drinkable Rivers is available for purchase at The Golden Notebook on Tinker Street and for loan through The Woodstock Library. For details on Conversations in Conservation and upcoming events, visit www.woodstocklandconservancy.org.
-Miranda Javid
