Resilient wetland communities
Reduced climate risks
2030 TARGET: Safeguard and restore 60 million hectares of wetlands as integral elements of productive river and lake landscapes. PROGRESS: We are behind schedule. We are at risk of not achieving this target and need to clarify how to account for direct and indirect achievements in productive landscapes.
2030 TARGET: €500 million committed to Nature-based Solutions in freshwater wetlands, for climate change mitigation and adaptation. PROGRESS: We have not made significant progress so far. We will focus on strengthening our finance expertise, securing commitments from governments through the Freshwater Challenge, and facilitating wetlands partnerships between the EU and key countries.
From the High Andes to the Sahel, our country programmes have worked across multiple wetland landscapes to strengthen food and water security for wetland communities, contributing to more stable incomes and greater resilience. This has included work to improve the management of natural resources. For example in the Ziway- Shalla basin in Ethiopia we have developed a water allocation plan to resolve conflicts over access. In the Inner Niger delta, Mali, where people’s livelihoods are affected by the increasing variability in water availability due to climate
change and upstream water allocation decisions, we have strengthen sustainable fisheries, and introduced better grazing practices to minimise impacts on rivers and wetlands. In Argentina and Peru where we have decreased the pressure on wetlands by implementing better grazing management techniques with local communities. Building communities’ resilience against climate change was an important area of focus, as well as working with women, young people, Indigenous peoples and marginalised groups.
We were at the first UN Water Conference in almost half a century in New York in March, ensuring wetlands and freshwater ecosystems were high on the agenda. The main outcome of the conference was the Water Action Agenda, which contains over 700 voluntary commitments from governments, private sector, civil society and others, adding up to more than US$300 billion. The headline commitment was the launch of the Freshwater Challenge, as well as commitments on water and sustainable development with the Water, Peace and Security partnership and on water for climate and source-to-sea approaches. We also saw progress on advancing the rights of nature, including the rights of wetlands.
We also made progress working with communities to enhance their capacity to identify and implement Nature-based Solutions at the local level. In Kenya, we secured a €875,000 investment from the World Bank through their Financing Locally-Led Clmate Action Programme, and inspired other donors and partners including the Dutch Embassy and Concern Worldwide to develop sustainable fisheries and climate-smart agriculture programmes around Brazil.
The Pantanal is the largest tropical wetland on the planet sprawling across Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. Yet in recent years, intensifying pressure from deforestation driven by infrastructure development and land conversion are putting the survival of the Pantanal in jeopardy.
20
21
Wetlands International Annual Review 2023
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online