“Water is not just a
victim of the climate crisis, it is central to solving climate change”
- CEO Jane Madgwick
Cinthia Soto, Senior Advocacy Officer at Wetlands International, and peatlands experts visit Flanders Moss National Nature Reserve north of Glasgow, one of the largest remaining intact raised bogs in Britain.
One event launched a global peatlands mapping initiative, intended to be used in a forthcoming Global Peatlands Assessment. This assists countries with large peatland resources and significant greenhouse gas emissions. Consecutively, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Scotland and Chile to collaborate on protecting their respective peatlands, discussions took place on the development of a new European Peatlands Initiative and Germany unveiled its national peatlands strategy. Several nations in the Nile Basin firmed up commitments in their climate pledges, known formally as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), to include protection of peatlands such as South Sudan’s giant Sudd swamp. Meanwhile, Canada committed to increasing protection of its own rich peatland resources. However, some attendees warned that many nations have a long way to go to fulfil their pledges. Canada, for instance, has a quarter of the world’s peatlands, including the Hudson Bay Lowlands, which alone contains the equivalent to 175 years of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Yet currently only a tenth of those peatlands
are in protected areas, and many are threatened by mining developments.
Wetlands International also brought expertise to water issues. At the Water Pavilion, in collaboration with the Stockholm International Water Institute and partners, we underlined how wetlands are critical to the better water management in landscapes that we need as part of adapting to climate change. “Water is not just a victim of the climate crisis, it is central to solving climate change” said CEO Jane Madgwick. During the conference, delegates made two important breakthroughs for wetlands. First, several countries, particularly in the tropics, included wetlands protection and restoration in their NDCs for the first time. Most notable were Peru, which during 2021 banned commercial exploitation of peatlands; the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where vast swamp peatlands were discovered less than a decade ago within the Lac Télé Community Reserve; and Indonesia, which sees keeping its peatswamp forests wet as the key to preventing forest fires.
Jane Madgwick, CEO, speaks live on Al Jazeera about wetlands as a solution to climate change.
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Wetlands International Annual Review 2021
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