Representatives of European water bodies - including seas, rivers, lakes, wetlands, lagoons, and glaciers - came together in Amsterdam and Bergen aan Zee for the third edition of the Confluence of European Water Bodies. The four-day programme (21–24 September 2025) was an interdisciplinary gathering seeking new ways to represent water in legal, cultural, and political arenas. 

As one of the more than 35 participating ecosystems, the Baltic Sea is part of a larger network of rivers, seas and lakes rethinking water governance across Europe. For the Embassy of the Baltic Sea, participation in Confluence offers an opportunity for environmental diplomacy, cultural exchange, and collaborative future-planning. "Meeting other representatives of waterbodies in the Confluence showed me the power and engagement to protect our waters in the waterbodies represented here. Many are far ahead to push for legal rights and that motivates us in our engagement", says Anne Marie Flood, member of the Baltic Sea delegation. 

Anne Marie Flood, Pella Thiel and Noémi Zelander Dukai represented the Baltic Sea at the Confluence.

The event was hosted by the Embassy of the North Sea in collaboration with TBA21-Academy and ILP Mar Menor. The Confluence builds on a shift from treating water as a mere resource, to treating it as a living entity - looking at legal personhood, rights of nature, and more-than-human representation. The opening was a public event in Amsterdam with author Robert Macfarlane presenting his new book Is a River Alive?. Then the Confluence moved to the shores of the North Sea at Bergen aan Zee, to build connections to water and each other, sharing memories of water encounters, exploring watery dimensions in time and space and how we are all waterbodies. Future-thinking and strategy sessions were held at Museum Kranenburgh and University of Amsterdam, where the session Rights of Nature Beyond the Looking Glass invited discussions on what rights of nature may mean in a European context — including perspectives tied to the Global South.


All the water representatives and author Robert Macfarlane.

"To swim in our collective waters was rejuvenating!" says Noémi Zelander Dukai, member of the Baltic Sea delegation. "It reminded me of our collective power, of culture-making. To engage in important questions within the rights of nature framework with curiosity, with people whose hearts are alive, created real ripples in me."

The closing event was also a launch of the Dogger Bank Coalition, a new alliance of organisations from UK, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The coalition will focus on restoring reefs and improving legal, cultural or political representation of Dogger Bank — a large submarine sandbank in the North Sea. (Read the Declaration of Formation, signed by the Embassy of the Baltic Sea).


Symbolic confluence at Museum Kranenburgh.


Teresa Conesa of Mar Menor in Spain tells the story of how Europe got its first ecosystem with legal personhood.


Glimpses of the Confluence.