A river is like mother. Throughout history, civilizations have fostered building on the plentiful resources from rivers – humans have always been close to rivers, just how the relationship is with mothers, and with so many cities around the world, including Dhaka, the capital of the riverine country Bangladesh, being built on riverbanks, it goes to show that, undoubtedly, rivers are central to humans’ lives and living. However, today, in the leaps and bounds of the modern lifestyle, the distance has only been growing between people and nature, and the latter is suffering - its rivers, forests, inhabitants are. Yet, the real sufferers are humans because without nature, sustenance is impossible, and the further humans go from nature, the more they are bringing doom closer upon them. One can try to place this into perspective by imagining how the Buriganga River, on which Dhaka has been built, would look like when it is clean. Conserving rivers, therefore, means conserving mother, thus conserving biodiversity, and nature itself. With such a backdrop and the intent to strive forward to save the rivers of Bangladesh, on Thursday, May 24, 2018, the faculty members at the then Department of Environmental Science (DES), then School of Environmental Science and Management (SESM), at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), came together to inaugurate a new club: River Conservation Club-IUB (RCC-IUB). The club is a result of a joint collaboration by the then SESM, IUB, with the (a) Riverine People, and (b) Bangladesh River Forum. These two extensive organizational bodies have a large network of river activists and researchers, who have been working to save the rivers of Bangladesh.
