Swimming in the world's city rivers and harbours 'Should be a right'

Swimming in urban waterways should be a right, activists have said, as an international alliance aims to persuade politicians to clean up rivers so they can be used safely.

- Ella Foote

At the world's first Swimmable Cities summit in Rotterdam, more than 200 representatives from over 20 countries gathered and plunged into a local swimming spot that was once an industrial port.

The Swimmable Cities alliance was formed in response to the Seine clean-up for the 2024 Paris Olympics. The summit aims to build on this work and progress made in other European cities to create a global network of swimmable urban waterways.

The setting itself showed what can be possible: Rotterdam's Rijnhaven, once an industrial port on the south bank of the Nieuwe Maas, is now a designated swimming area with a floating pontoon park, and the only legal place to swim in central Rotterdam. Locals come for evening swims or lunchtime dips; children leap in and play. During the summit, conversations took place in swimsuits.