Wetlands for a Safer World: how we invested 1 million Euros from the Dutch Postcode Lottery In our 2017 proposal “Wetlands for a Safer World”, we promised to leverage investments and actions to realise our long-term ambitions, in turn benefiting people and nature. We indicated that the Dutch Postcode Lottery grant for 2018-2020 would be used mainly as “seed finance”, to enable upscaling and application by others of effective wetland solutions. We also proposed to invest in measures which help Wetlands International raise wetlands higher on the agenda and improve our institutional capacity and financial resilience. Over 2018-2020, we invested the €1 million grant in a consistent set of themes. Below, we summarise the main outcomes, drawing attention also to the achievements and outcomes in 2020.
We forged an international, inter-sectoral partnership to mobilise Building with Nature in Asia and gained additional political support and resources to help materialise this ambition in the five countries of Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Malaysia and China.
To further boost our climate change mitigation work, we established a new global programme on wetland carbon and forged three new strategic partnerships (with Greenchoice, Boskalis, Commonland and Landscape Finance Lab), which will help establish and accelerate a pipeline of high quality large scale mangrove and peatland recovery projects for carbon financing.
See page 30: Five years of Building with Nature
See page 46: Carbon
partnerships to save wetlands and the climate
We re-established our global leadership role in championing and enabling the conservation and restoration of peatlands, and opened up a series of partnership opportunities to create impact on the ground in Europe.
Operational improvements include a new finance system that will enhance our efficiency and improve financial management standards, the mobilisation of the Network Management Team, the further institutional development of individual offices and supported staff to enable good internal, partner and stakeholder communications during the Covid-19 pandemic.
We brought our stories and experience on wetlands into the spotlight by publishing a landmark book Water Lands and a variety of media. We used these stories as a means to raise awareness about wetlands and their values, as well as to engage youth groups and mobilise their support for investing in wetlands as Nature-based Solutions. Part of the grant was allocated to increase our communications capacities and competencies, particularly in social media channels and allowed us to establish new collaborations and platforms to amplify our messages.
in the Sahel. In particular, we forged an international and African coalition who are committed to mobilise action to safeguard and restore wetlands in the region.
See page 18: peatlands section in the achievements
See page 54: Bring on the flood
See page 70: Functioning of the organisation
We played a significant role in establishing the Global Mangrove Alliance, leading to a suite of new mangrove projects in Eastern Africa, and also the establishment of Global Mangrove Watch which provides real- time information on trends in mangrove distribution and data.
See page 62: Bringing wetlands to the fore
We established a unique niche and project portfolio for wetlands in cities that is leveraging large-scale Building with Nature investments, for example in urban flood management, as well as highlighting the positive contribution that wetlands have for urban heat island effect (UHI) reduction.
See page 38: Watching mangroves from space – and protecting them on the ground
See page 8: urban wetlands for heat-proofing cities
We achieved greatly enhanced recognition of the need to improve the condition of wetlands and water as part of efforts to address human security and bring peace
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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020
Wetlands International Annual Review 2020
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