Humans Are Wiping Out Water Bodies That Life Depends On, New Report Says – Inside Climate News

A landmark report for the global agreement on wetlands paints a dire picture of the state of the world’s water bodies that underpin all life on Earth. 

The report, released Tuesday by the secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands, says that since 1970 more than one-fifth of wetlands have been lost, meaning they have shrunk so much they’re no longer viable or have completely disappeared. Out of what remains, a quarter of the water bodies are in ecological distress. 

Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America have the most recent widespread deterioration on average, while Europe and North America have already destroyed many of their wetlands. 

That spells trouble for global food security, climate stability and the capacity for life on Earth to persist, said Musonda Mumba, secretary general of the convention, in her written remarks about the report, the Global Wetland Outlook. 

“The data presented in this Outlook are sobering,” Mumba said. “Wetland degradation is widespread across all regions. Millions of hectares have been lost.” 

The convention defines wetlands broadly, including marine systems, lakes, rivers and man-made sites like fish ponds and rice paddies, among other ecosystems. There are 173 government parties to the treaty, which is dedicated to “the conservation and wise use of all wetlands.”   

Wetlands feed billions of people globally, play a crucial role in replenishing drinking water sources, mitigate climate change and protect communities from intense storms and flooding by acting as natural barriers and sponges, among many other services that support life.

Human activity is putting that at risk. The razing and filling of wetlands for agriculture, urban settlements and industrialization are top drivers of wetland loss and are amplifying stress on global water resources, the report said. Intensive water use for agriculture and other industry accounts for a combined 89 percent of water withdrawals. That unsustainable extraction threatens wetlands’ ability to regenerate and maintain their natural cycles.

The report, compiled by more than 60 experts from around the world, is the flagship technical review of the Convention on Wetlands. It’s the third published since 2018. 

Using satellite data, geospatial analysis, surveys and scientific studies, the authors evaluated the state of 11 types of wetlands: seagrass, kelp forests, coral reefs, estuarine waters, salt marshes, mangroves, tidal flats, lakes, rivers and streams, inland marshes and swamps, and peatlands. Other wetland ecosystems, like groundwater aquifers and alpine wetlands, were omitted from the report because there isn’t enough data on their conditions. 

Those data gaps, the report said, could obscure the full environmental and economic cost of wetland degradation and loss. 

Beyond the outright destruction of wetlands, the report chronicles evidence of chemical pollution, invasive species, over-harvesting of native species, climate disruptions and human alterations like dams that lead to degradation and changes to waterways’ natural cycles. 

Like United Nations climate and biodiversity assessments, the wetlands analysis underscores the interconnectedness between people and nature. 

While all human wellbeing is ultimately dependent on healthy wetlands, we’re not all equally impacted when they’re degraded. Indigenous and local communities typically bear the brunt of the consequences when water bodies are harmed or lost. Those groups often have deep relationships with wetlands, acting as custodians of knowledge about the ecosystems, defending them from harm and deriving their livelihoods and sustenance from them. 

“When wetlands are converted to other land uses, notably intensive agriculture or built infrastructure, ownership of the benefits tends to be held privately and by those with greater assets, while the cost of losing the wetland ecosystem services tends to fall on the disadvantaged,” the report said. 

The authors called for the inclusion of Indigenous and local communities in decision making about wetlands. They also called for transformational change in the way wetlands are economically valued, noting that ecosystem services like flood management and water purification aren’t accounted for in mainstream economics. 

Lakes and rivers provide between $18,000 and $39,000 in ecosystem services per hectare annually, the report estimated. For coral reefs, that number is between $99,000 and nearly $518,000. 

The cost of wetlands lost over the last half-century, the report said, exceeds $5.1 trillion, while safeguarding remaining wetlands will yield $205 trillion in services over the next 25 years. 

“Wetlands bankroll the planet, yet we are still investing more in their destruction than in their recovery,” Mumba said.

Speaking at a press conference about the report, Anthony Nyong, director of climate change and green growth at the African Development Bank, said protecting wetlands is imperative on the African continent, with more than 60 percent of some countries’ gross domestic product coming from land-based sectors like agriculture, forestry and tourism. 

“Wetlands are economic engines for local communities,” Nyong said, highlighting a 2022 wetland restoration project in Zambia’s Kafue Flats that has supported more than 1.3 million people and unlocked artisanal fisheries worth $30 million annually.

“This is what we call extraordinary, high-impact, cost-effective investments,” he said, adding that “wetlands are not wastelands, they are actually wealth lands.”  

The report also stressed that nature’s value goes beyond monetary figures. 

Wetlands hold intrinsic worth simply by existing, and for the relationships people form with them. For many local communities and Indigenous peoples, that intrinsic value guides governance decisions. But in mainstream policy making, wetlands’ inherent value is inadequately considered, the report said, with the authors underscoring that there are “multiple ways of seeing the world.” 

“Wetlands are not marginal. They’re fundamental to our planet.”

— Hugh Robertson with the Convention on Wetlands’ scientific and technical review body

The authors called for “transformative societal change” to stop wetland destruction and to meet global goals to restore 30 percent of wetlands that have been lost or degraded—roughly 428 million hectares. Doing so, the authors said, will require economically valuing ecosystem services; prioritizing wetlands’ interests in decision making; recognizing wetlands’ role in supporting the global water cycle, which supports all life; and investing in conservation at the level scientists say is necessary.

The ecosystem services that wetlands provide are about 7.5 percent of global gross domestic product, yet biodiversity funding for all types of ecosystems only accounts for about 0.25 percent of global GDP. 

“At least double that amount is needed just for wetlands,” said Hugh Robertson, chair of the convention’s scientific and technical review body, speaking at the press conference. 

The authors suggested additional ways to pay for wetlands conservation. Those include taxing businesses that harm nature and using that money to protect wetlands. Another idea is “debt-for-nature swaps,” where a country’s debt is partly canceled if they agree to protect ecosystems—the report noted that poorer countries tend to have less healthy wetlands than richer ones. Poor countries also lag behind in the number of spatial monitoring systems needed to have a clear assessment of wetlands’ health.

While restoration of wetlands is essential, the report said, prevention is more cost effective. 

“Wetlands are not marginal,” Robertson said. “They’re fundamental to our planet.”

The report comes just days ahead of the 15th meeting of countries that are part of the wetlands convention, taking place in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, from July 23 to 31. 

The treaty, signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971 and also known as the Ramsar Convention, encourages its member countries to establish “Wetlands of International Importance,” commonly known as Ramsar Sites, within their jurisdictions—though these make up a small portion of wetlands overall.

The United States ratified the wetlands convention in the 1980s and has 41 Ramsar Sites, including Everglades National Park, the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere and a critical breeding location for tropical wading birds; the Chesapeake Bay estuarine complex, a migration site for sea turtles and a million waterfowl, as well as the permanent home of more than 3,600 plant and animals species; and the Delaware Bay Estuary, one of the most important shorebird migration sites worldwide. 

The U.S. Department of State didn’t respond to questions about whether it is sending a delegation to the conference, if the U.S. government is committed to wetland conservation and restoration or if it’s acting to meet the goals of the Ramsar convention. The Trump administration sent no representatives to recent U.N. climate talks.