For 40 years, International Rivers has worked to ensure that victories for rivers don’t disappear with the next political cycle or development proposal. Our work is grounded in a simple but urgent idea: hard-won momentum must be transformed into lasting safeguards for rivers and the communities that depend on them.
In 2025, this vision came to life across three interconnected pillars—permanent river protection, community leadership, and a just energy transition. Together, these efforts show what’s possible when communities lead, and supporters stand with them.
Pillar 1: Permanent Protection and Restoration of Rivers
Our first pillar focuses on turning legal and political wins into enduring protections. In 2025, this meant moving beyond ideas and into action: advancing river protection laws, strengthening rights-of-rivers frameworks, and building the legal tools communities need to keep rivers free-flowing for generations.
- A 40-year legacy powering today’s wins
This year marked International Rivers’ 40th anniversary—four decades of movement-building that continue to shape how rivers and the ecosystems and communities they sustain are protected today. - Mapping a future without dams in the Tapajós Basin
New legal analysis, basin-wide maps, and concerted consultation with Indigenous and community input identified legal pathways in a new report to prevent the construction of new dams and destructive mining impacting communities and ecosystems on one of the Amazon’s most vital yet threatened tributaries. - Global momentum for the rights of rivers
At the IUCN Congress, the world’s largest gathering of conservation experts and leaders, International Rivers helped secure passage of a landmark motion from governments and the conservation community advancing river protections and rights of rivers worldwide—a critical step in ensuring the protection of freshwater ecosystems. - Winning global recognition for the Marañón River
Mariluz Canaquiri, nominated by International Rivers, won the Goldman Environmental Prize for securing rights for Peru’s Marañón River—an inspiration for river defenders everywhere. - River protection laws advanced across Latin America
In Brazil, Colombia, and Chile, International Rivers supported partners to move groundbreaking river protection and rights-of-rivers bills forward, laying the foundation for permanent protection in law that will guarantee enduring protections for ecosystems and communities.
Pillar 2: Communities as Decision Makers
Protecting rivers is not only about laws and policies—it’s about people, and who gets to decide. At the heart of International Rivers’ work is a second pillar: ensuring river defenders and local communities are decision makers in shaping their futures.
In 2025, International Rivers invested deeply in Indigenous leadership, women river defenders, and grassroots movements facing enormous pressure. From community-led impact assessments to tools that make participation real, these highlights show how people on the frontlines are leading the way.
- Communities led their own impact assessments
From the Salween to the Mekong, communities shared tools and strategies to challenge destructive dam projects on their own terms, such as through the Peoples’ Environmental Impact Assessment process pioneered in Southeast Asia. - Women river defenders took center stage
Across South and Southeast Asia, International Rivers supported women leaders through exchanges and advocacy. This included helping catalyze the Brahmaputra Women’s Network, bringing together women leaders across the basin to organize, share strategies, and confront the growing threats posed by large hydropower projects. - Public participation tools reached African communities
Trainings and new materials, such as the new Public Participation Manual, helped communities threatened by dams in Namibia, Guinea, and the DRC learn how to navigate complex legal processes and defend their rights and rivers, and the ecosystems they sustain. - Defenders protected under threat
Having played a key role through the Vietnam Climate Defenders Coalition in securing the release of climate activist Hoang Thi Minh Hong in Vietnam, International Rivers brought considerable attention to the plight of Dang Dinh Bach, who remains imprisoned. - Grassroots networks strengthened
From Guinea to Brazil to the Brahmaputra Basin, new community associations formed to unite voices, coordinate actions, and advocate collectively—providing powerful platforms for communities to stand up to harmful projects.
Pillar 3: Challenging False Climate Solutions
As the world races to respond to the climate crisis, decisions made in the name of “green” energy are reshaping rivers at an alarming pace. International Rivers’ third pillar—challenging false climate solutions and advancing a just and inclusive energy transition—focuses on ensuring rivers and communities are not sacrificed for harmful projects.
In 2025, this meant confronting powerful institutions, elevating community voices in global decision-making spaces, and exposing the real costs of mega-dams and centralized energy systems.
As the push for “green” energy accelerates, International Rivers is working to ensure that rivers and communities are not sacrificed in the name of climate action.
- Challenging the World Bank on mega-dams
International Rivers led advocacy targeting the World Bank over its involvement in the Inga 3 hydropower scheme, which included securing passage of a motion at the IUCN Congress that served as a powerful rebuke for the bank’s misguided return to financing risky mega-dams. - Canceling the Tabajara dam in Brazil’s Madeira basin
A 15-year effort to cancel the ill-conceived Tabajara dam paid off when Brazilian authorities rejected the project, which would have devastated freshwater ecosystems in the Brazilian Amazon. However, a recent auction of new hydropower projects in Brazil portends more challenges ahead. - Accountability mechanisms triggered
International Rivers supported a formal complaint to the World Bank’s Inspection Panel over serious policy violations at the Rogun hydropower project, which would become the world’s tallest dam and drastically impact critical ecosystems and millions of people living in downstream countries. - Establishing new precedents protecting free-flowing rivers
International Rivers made important contributions to the revised environmental and social standards of the Asian Development Bank, whose rollout in 2025 included a key prohibition on funding dams on free-flowing rivers. - Just transitions led by communities
Cross-regional exchanges elevated real, community-led alternatives to destructive energy projects—pointing toward a truly just transition. African and South Asian partners visited a model community-led renewable energy project in Malaysia that is inspiring similar efforts back home.