Farewell to Patrick McCully

Appropriately, my strongest memory of Patrick McCully is from a river. Rushing down the spectacular Bujagali Falls in Uganda, our departing boss and I clung on to our inflatable raft for dear life. Washing off the stress of long meetings with dam builders, Paddy shouted his delight about a river he had helped to save at the top of his lungs. At the end, like throughout his professional life, he managed the riverine challenges well – and got a big kick out of it.

When I first met Patrick at an NGO gathering in Amsterdam in 1994, I recognized the mastermind and trouble-maker in him right away. Paddy arrived unkempt and jet-lagged but enthusiastic from a visit to India’s Narmada Valley . Rather than enjoying the city’s famous coffee houses, he stayed up late to draft a letter to dam builders, but had mischievous fun with it.

Over the following years, I witnessed Paddy travel all corners of the world to support grassroots campaigns, and negotiate with powerful dam builders and financiers. I watched him hide in the curtains of an important meeting he was not supposed to attend, and stare down an opponent at a mafia-like backdoor gathering during the World Commission on Dams process.

The memories of our endless meetings at International Rivers, when we couldn’t stop arguing even if we agreed, will hopefully fade away soon. Yet I won’t forget how Paddy rushed to the deathbed of our friend and colleague Glenn Switkes in Brazil in late 2009, showing emotional support when we all needed it.

Being a successful global activist requires brains and guts, courage and patience, an analytical mind and the instinct to do the right thing. Patrick McCully has it all. Born and raised in Northern Ireland, Paddy grew up with a rebellious spirit and a shrewd sense of tactics. He became streetwise as a youthful hitchhiker in Europe, and quickly gave up his plans for a dissertation on pre-historic Irish sheep droppings. He traveled to Africa instead, where he was confronted with absurd white elephant projects that ignored the needs of local people. In 1989, Paddy joined The Ecologist magazine as a co-editor, and soon traveled to India to support the campaign against the Sardar Sarovar Dam in the Narmada Valley.

Patrick McCully joined International Rivers in 1993 and before long became our campaigns director. He organized global grassroots campaigns against destructive projects, and helped forge one of the most effective international civil society networks. Through his clear-eyed analysis of their hidden costs and doubtful benefits, Paddy helped to make big dams an issue which many funders no longer wanted to touch.

While we got a good night’s rest, Patrick crunched numbers and pored over reports to write Silenced Rivers, the masterpiece which rattled the dam industry when it appeared in 1996. A few months later, I saw prominent dam builders line up to get a signed copy of the book and pay their respects to the activist who tormented them like no one else. By the end of that day, the dam industry had agreed to the creation of the independent World Commission on Dams.

In 2005, Patrick McCully succeeded Juliette Majot as the Executive Director of International Rivers. To our slight surprise, he turned himself from a grassroots campaigner into a full time manager and fundraiser. He was wise enough to give his campaigners ample space, but still managed to mold us – a motley crew of free spirits – into a strong and effective organization. Under Paddy, we prepared a clear long-term strategy, took up new programs on climate change and China’s global role, and opened new offices in Thailand, Cameroon and India. Every once in a while Patrick managed to shake off his management hat and delve into new issues. He became a leading global expert on dams and climate change, and remained a thorn in the side of the technocrats, profiteers and power brokers whom he enjoyed calling the world water mafia .

Patrick knows that many of our successes are temporary. The Bujagali Falls are now being dammed, and the Sardar Sarovar Dam is all but completed. Even so, Paddy leaves a lasting legacy: International Rivers is a respected voice at the heart of a strong worldwide movement to defend rivers and rights. The global public is aware of the problems with large dams. Affected communities and grassroots movements around the world know how they can defend their rights. And dam builders and financiers often hesitate to take on the worst projects. With brain power and hard work, Paddy has brought some ecological reason and social justice to global decision-making.

At the end of January, Patrick McCully will step down from his role as the godfather of a global civil society movement. He will leave International Rivers after 17 years, and will take on a new position as the Executive Director of Black Rock Solar, a non-profit which promotes solar energy through rooftop installations, advocacy, art and education. Campaigns director Aviva Imhof will take over as Executive Director of International Rivers on an interim basis.

After a long day in the trenches, Paddy enjoys spending time with his family, chilling out with friends over beers, and making plans for the annual Burning Man extravaganza. We hope he will have more time for such pleasures in the years to come. Yet, like being a member of the mafia, fighting destructive dams is a life sentence. We all know that Paddy deserves a good break and a new start. And we all know that he will continue to be around.

Together with my colleagues, countless friends and many opponents: thank you, Paddy, and farewell.

Peter Bosshard is the policy director of International Rivers. He blogs at www.internationalrivers.org/en/blog/peter-bosshard