“What we see here is a small beginning, but one that brings immense hope for the future”
CEO Jane Madgwick
Jane Madgwick, CEO, Wetlands International visits the Ziway-Shalla sub-basin, Ethiopia
Ziway-Shalla sub-basin The scene is the Rift Valley in Ethiopia, a region whose lakes and water resources have been stressed to breaking point by growing human populations, climate change and industrialised farming, including huge greenhouses that irrigate more than a billion roses sold in Europe every year. But over the past three years, there has been an impressive transformation in part of the valley known as the Ziway-Shalla sub-basin - thanks to our work to reverse the land degradation that comes from tree clearance on hillsides and the overuse of scarce water. Instead, there is a cycle of regeneration. Centered on Lake Ziway, the basin’s only freshwater lake and a vital source of water for more than two million people, our projects work with smallholder farmers, livestock herders, major water users and local administrators to democratise water use, capture rains to percolate underground; improve water allocation; boost irrigation efficiency; and end deforestation in the surrounding hills that has been silting up the lakes. “What we see here is a small beginning, but one that brings immense hope for the future” said Wetlands International CEO Jane Madgwick after a visit in mid-2022. “Thousands of community members have put their energy and effort into rejuvenating their landscape. They have trusted our advice and they are proud of the results. Now they own it, and we are thinking about how to scale it up. Because the need is vast and the demand is huge.”
Agriculture is a major driver of wetland destruction and the biggest user of the world’s water. The water troubles of Ethiopia’s Rift Valley are a microcosm of its broken relationship with the water cycle. Too often, farmers destroy wetlands by draining them to provide land for crops, then empty rivers and lakes to provide irrigation. Combined with pollution from agricultural nutrients and chemicals, the result is less clean water for everyone and long-term food insecurity undermined. What we are attempting around Lake Ziway is one aspect of what needs to be achieved everywhere: protecting water resources by enhancing the natural processes that capture and sustain water in the landscape. In so doing, we help rural communities advance their needs while simultaneously protecting and restoring nature. Blue Lifelines for a Secure Sahel Elsewhere in Africa, our Blue Lifelines for a Secure Sahel (BLiSS) project aims to restore 20 million hectares of vital wetlands in the arid landscape on the fringes of the Sahara. At the small scale, BLiSS is helping communities from the delta of the River Senegal through the Inner Niger Delta to Lake Chad to manage their scarce water better. Round table in Bamako And at the large scale, in July 2022 we convened a high-level round table in Bamako, under the chairmanship of Mali’s minister for mining, energy and water, which gave political endorsement to safeguarding and restoring the region’s degraded wetland ecosystems. That means, for instance, managing flows through hydroelectric dams to ensure that
The Ziway-Shalla sub-basin
Wetlands International Annual Review 2022
Wetlands International Annual Review 2022
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