We need to sustain wetlands as natural
sponges to soak up floods and mitigate droughts that are intensifying with climate change.
Round table in Bamako, under the chairmanship of Mali’s minister for mining, energy and water
floodplains, wetlands and smallholder farmers downstream get the water they need. To succeed, this work requires changing minds as well as engineering and agricultural practices. But we are making progress. South America In South America, on the Paraná delta in Argentina and the Pantanal in Brazil, we have begun negotiating agreements with livestock ranchers to encourage alternative livestock- raising practices - including replacing cattle with water buffalo - which protect these wetlands and guard against a growing epidemic of wildfires. So far, these agreements cover some 34,000 hectares. We are also developing wider management plans for the Paraná delta and both the Kadiweu Indigenous Territory and SESC Ramsar site on the Pantanal, covering nearly 900,000 hectares. This work forms part of our ten-year Corredor Azul initiative to protect the entire floodplain of the Paraná -Paraguay river system through the heart of the continent, one of the world’s last large and largely free-flowing rivers. Germany A key task in many landscapes is to change farming methods to slow down the movement of rainwater and eroded soils flowing off hillsides, through fields, to rivers. We need to sustain wetlands as natural sponges to soak up floods and
mitigate droughts that are intensifying with climate change. Germany is learning this lesson after Europe’s worst flood disaster in decades in the Eifel Mountains in 2021. The flood, in which more than 220 people died, was initially blamed on extreme rainfall due to changing climate. But peer-reviewed research published by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 2022 confirmed Wetlands International’s initial assessment that a major underlying factor was land-use changes, including enhanced drainage in the upper catchments of the swollen rivers. With their capacity to hold water drastically diminished, the rain rushed rapidly downstream. Asia Degraded wetlands caused other similar disasters in 2022. The September floods across Pakistan were made worse by poor agricultural practices that had silted up wetlands on the floodplain of the River Indus. Lake Manchar, one of South Asia’s largest lakes, was so clogged that it rapidly burst its banks, engulfing dozens of villages. Spain Such follies continued. In Spain, the Andalusian parliament retrospectively legalised the widespread abstraction of underground water by strawberry farmers, which is drying up the Doñana wetland, one of Europe’s most important wintering grounds for waterfowl.
Fisherman of Parana-Paraguay corridor at work
Wetlands International Annual Review 2022
Wetlands International Annual Review 2022
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