Rivers are a major source of renewable water, and provide food, jobs and a sense of place and cultural identity for people living in the vicinity. For many Indigenous peoples, rivers are central to how they understand themselves, their origins and their relationships to the rest of nature. As a citizen of the Penobscot Nation in Maine put it1, “The river is us: the river is in our veins.” Writing in Nature, Koning et al.2 report ecological surveys that demonstrate how local Indigenous people in