sustainable restoration of mangrove belts. • We launched a three-year initiative in Eastern Africa supported by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Source to Sea, to upscale an approach to combat the drivers of wetland loss and their biodiversity, and enable community resilience in the Rift Valley and mangrove ecoregions. • We secured two major research projects funded through the EU Horizon 2020 programme to develop solutions to influence EU policies (Common Agricultural Policy and EU Restoration law and Carbon Farming) and promote upscaling of peatland restoration by farmers and communities in Europe.
Further details of these results are provided below.
Setbacks Not everything went according to plan in 2021. Despite effectively adapting to working online, several of our programmes have experienced delays and uncertainties due to the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic. For example, the Sustainable Palm Oil Round Table (RSPO) training course for plantation owners on “Drainage Assessment” was postponed for a second year due to the inability to hold face-to-face interactions. Likewise, we were disappointed that critical global meetings for the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance had to be postponed again. Achievements in our three Streams On the following pages, we report on our 2021 achievements in more detail and provide the progress results we have made in each Stream toward our 2030 targets.
ACHIEVEMENTS
This chapter presents our 2021 achievements. Our work towards achieving our goals set out in our Strategic Intent 2020-2030 is organised into three Streams: Coasts and Deltas, Rivers and Lakes, and Peatlands. The section below summarises progress in 2021 towards the 10-year targets.
Impact Area - Reduced Climate Risks Highlights include:
• Peatlands were included in Russia’s Climate Action Plan (NDC) as a result of inventories we compiled for six regions totalling approximately 2.85 million ha of peatlands and monitored the GHG emissions according to international standards on 40,000 ha. • We witnessed further development of the Building with Nature Asia initiative, a programme that seeks to leverage investment in Nature-based Solutions to increase the resilience of 30 million vulnerable people in cities and settlements along vulnerable coasts and rivers by 2030 across the continent, by engaging government in Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and India in programme design and strengthening actual propositions for investment in selected landscapes in the target countries. • Working with GIZ and other partners, we secured German government support to develop a major EUR 20 million programme for climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Niger Basin. Wetland carbon Wetland carbon is a rapidly developing cross-cutting topic that is relevant to all wetland landscape types. Over the past year, there has been a surge of interest in the role wetland conservation and restoration can play in reducing emissions and capturing carbon, while at the same time providing community and biodiversity benefits. In all three Streams, we made strong progress in developing landscape propositions and best practice guidance for using carbon financing to support action as diverse as mangrove restoration, fire prevention, and peatland rewetting. We also experienced a strong interest in our work on wetland carbon from finance institutions and companies, and we collaborated more strongly with our partners Permian Global, Boskalis, Greenchoice and Rewilding Europe. In 2021, we investigated the role of carbon finance for wetlands – including through a stand- out side event at COP26 – and defined principles to ensure socio-environmental integrity that we will advance in 2022 to unlock carbon finance for wetlands in a responsible way.
All of our achievements are the result of our teams working around the world with our many partners in local, national, and international networks. The achievements selected below are part of a long-term results framework and build partly on activities already started in previous years. We highlight those achievements where Wetlands International’s role or contribution has been significant and instrumental towards reaching long-term outcomes. Despite the ongoing disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in most countries, we have seen many positive steps forward over the past year. At the end of 2021 we are slightly behind the schedule laid out in the Strategic Intent. Nevertheless, we have achieved important results and are confident we have a good basis for future mobilisation and upscaling towards our 2030 targets. Raising the profile of wetlands We took advantage of many international events throughout the year to promote the case for global targets that safeguard and restore wetlands. One highlight was the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration in June 2021, where as part of the official launch event we released The 4 Returns Framework for Landscape Restoration: a step by step, systematic approach to bring stakeholders together to transform their landscape for four returns: natural, financial and social returns, and the return of inspiration. This framework offers a common language for landscape regeneration that can help bridge the different sectors and interests in any landscape and enable collaboration for transformation over the long-term. The Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow provided a special focus for our work on peatlands, water resiliency, and responsible carbon finance advocacy. With partners we organised and successfully delivered the first
ever UNFCCC Peatland Pavilion and Water Pavilion. These enabled us to connect with governments, companies and partners and to create a platform that will enable us to scale up results for wetlands in the future. As well as seeing a shift in the way wetlands are perceived by the international community as a solution to the global climate, biodiversity and social crises, we are proud of the results that were achieved at regional, national and local level. Impact Area - Healthy Wetlands Highlights include: • We brought together and provided technical expertise to government partners to develop sustainable management plans for protected areas in The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Kenya, Tanzania and Indonesia in over 400,000 hectares (ha) of mangroves and other coastal wetlands. • We completed the management plan for the 380,000 ha Pozuelos UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Argentina, including the 7,000 ha Lagoon, a Ramsar site, in close collaboration with governmental agencies. • We published the high altitude wetlands manual focusing on sustainable peatland and water management in the Himalayan highlands, which was welcomed by government agencies. • We published the first State of the World’s Mangroves Report in June 2021 with our Global Mangrove Alliance partners, using updated data from the Global Mangrove Watch platform. Impact Area - Resilient Wetland Communities Highlights include: • Government officials in China, Philippines and Indonesia adopted our Community-based Ecological Mangrove Restoration guidelines as part of our upscaling approach to protect coastal communities by accelerating the
OUR SCORING SYSTEM
On track to exceed target (we will achieve the target before 2030)
We expect to achieve the target by 2030
Substantial progress, but more time is needed to reach our target
So far, there is no significant overall progress
The situation is deteriorating and we can’t manage to make improvements
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Wetlands International Annual Review 2021
Wetlands International Annual Review 2021
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