"Rivers run through many of our cities, but who owns them?" That's the question posed in a recent podcast by the Covenant of Mayors, a group of mayors in which some of Europe's biggest cities play a key role.
In this case, it's the Portuguese city of Braga, which has adopted parts of its own river in a way that encourages locals to take an active role in protecting their natural surroundings, reports Vice.
"It includes families, groups of friends, enterprises, and schools," says an environmental education technician for the city.
"Most of them are schools because it has a very good effect on students."
The idea is to educate people about how to care for their environment, as well as provide them with tools to do so.
"We want to know who are the owners," says the project manager for Pau, another European city that has adopted parts of its own river.
"Otherwise, we are trying to control invasive plants in other areas, and if they don't do it, it doesn't work anymore."
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Ganesh Natarajan is the Founder and Chairman of 5FWorld, a new platform for funding and developing start-ups, social enterprises and the skills eco-system in India. In the past two decades, he has built two of India’s high-growth software services companies – Aptech and Zensar – almost from scratch to global success.