The Source
2020 Annual Review of Wetlands International

WETLANDSINTERNATIONAL
IS THE ONLY GLOBALNOT-FOR-PROFITORGANISATION
DEDICATED TO THE
CONSERVATION
AND RESTORATION OF
WETLANDS

What are wetlands?
Wetlands occur wherever water meets land – mangroves,peatlands, marshes, rivers, lakes, deltas, floodplains, flooded
forests, rice-fields, and even coral reefs. Wetlands exist in every
country across the world and every type of region – polar,
tropical, wet, dry, high and low altitude.
Healthy wetlands are key to restoring nature and healing our
climate, yet the world has lost up to 65% of its original wetlands.
Urgent action is needed to reverse this decline and revive thesenatural wonders.

Our Vision
A world where wetlands are treasured and nurtured for theirbeauty, the life they support and the resources they provide.
Our Mission
To inspire and mobilise society to safeguard and restore
wetlands for people and nature.

A Bayei fisherman in a mokoro, silhouetted by the midday sun, casts a long shadow on the waters of
the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Used in the book, Water Lands, Harper Collins 2020.
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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

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ANNUALREVIEW
2020
CONTENT

4

8

22

54

61

62

In shortA
BLUEGREEN
RECOVERY

BRING
ON
THE
FLOOD

WPS wins
Luxembourg
Prize

BRINGING
WETLANDSTO THE
FORE

29

30

38

66

67

78

Mr. I Nyoman
Suryadiputra

BUILDING
WITH
NATUREINDONESIAWATCHING
MANGROVES FROMSPACE

GastónFulquet

Ken-Ichi
Yokoi

Simon
Akwetaireho

45

46

53

79

Elizabeth
Wamba

CARBONPARTNERSHIPS

New
partnerships
in 2020

TeresaZuna

From our CEO
Strategic Intent 2020-2030
Achievements
Wetlands for a safer world
Building with Nature book
From the supervisory council
Offices map
Functioning of the organisation
Summary of finance
Question to our supervisory council
Question to our members
Thank you

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

6
10
12
20
37
64
68
70
80
82
84
86

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

5

FROM OUR CEO
Jane Madgwick, Chief Executive Officer, Wetlands International

In 2020, Wetlands International became an active partner in the Decade on
Ecosystem Restoration, pledging to work with others to recover diverse,
functioning wetlands as a basis for a resilient and liveable Earth. We had planned
to host regional stakeholder gatherings to build collaboration for safeguarding
and restoring wetlands, while also celebrating our 25th anniversary as a globalorganisation. In addition, a packed agenda of convention meetings for biodiversity(CBD), wetlands (Ramsar) and climate (UNFCCC) meant that in January 2020 thestage was set for a hectic global schedule.
In 2020, Wetlands International proudly became a supporting partner to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

brought some benefits to individuals but also the challengeof keeping a sense of team and introducing new staff tothe organisation. Learning from this experience will lead tosome permanent changes in our way of working.

It turned out differently. The rapid spread of the Covid-19
pandemic changed everyone’s priorities dramatically.
In March, we took measures to ensure the safety ofstaff and partners and helped each other adapt to new
ways of communicating and working. We re-shaped our
stakeholder engagement through an online campaign#PowerofWetlands and this generated an inspiring
movement of youth champions for wetlands.

Despite the constraints, 2020 included many highlights
and milestones. The launch of the Global Mangrove Watch
platform, that combines previously dispersed data andcan guide policy and practical actions for mangroves, issomething that was only a dream a decade ago. Setting
up a new wetland carbon programme, rejuvenating ourglobal peatlands programme, and agreeing to innovative
partnerships with two leading companies, has built
the foundation for a new portfolio of major landscapeinitiatives.

As you can read in this annual review, our staff have been
innovative and determined in helping people living inand around wetlands secure their well-being while stillconserving nature’s values. Thanks to pre-existing strong
collaborations with local communities, partners andgovernment agencies, much of our planned programmes
could continue, albeit in an adapted form.
We used web meetings and workshops to finalise ourStrategic Intent 2020-2030, with the support of our
stakeholders and members, to fulfil our governanceresponsibilities and engage audiences relevant for our
programmes. Working from home for much of the year
Jane Madgwick, CEO, Wetlands International

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

We have set high ambitions for this decade in our Strategic
Intent, including 2030 global targets on wetland recovery
which we are inviting others to adopt and integrate in theiraction plans. The scale of wetland recovery that we needis daunting, which means that sustaining and restoring
wetlands needs to become everyone’s business.
I am grateful to all our members, partners and donors foryour continuing support. Please enjoy our stories in thisreview and use it to bring many others on board!
Thank you.

2020 was the final year of our €1 million grant from theDutch Postcode Lottery which supported many of theoutcomes featured in this review. We were delighted inearly 2021 to be awarded an additional €1.5 million grant
which will enable us to strengthen our effectiveness andleverage more impact from our programmes in the coming
three years.

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

7IN SHORTSupporting
indigenous
communities in
the world’s largest
tropical wetland, thePantanal
In 2020, communities in the Pantanal suffered back-toback crises with the Covid-19 pandemic and the highest
number of fires in the last 22 years. The Pantanal forms thelargest tropical wetland in the world and approximately
40,606 square kilometres or 30% of its wetlands were engulfed by flames. Together with partners and the Brazilian
government, we coordinated support for indigenous communities by providing water and food parcels, and helping
them become self-sufficient in growing food and setting up
tree nurseries in readiness for restoration. The fires affected not just the Pantanal, but the entire blue corridor thatreaches down to the Paraná Delta in Argentina, all of which
we are working to safeguard through our Corredor Azul
Programme.

Urban wetlands forheat-proofing cities

Youth power in Rift
Valley, Ethiopia

AEWA celebrates
25 years

Urban wetlands are well known for their ecosystem services of flood protection, biodiversity habitat and aesthetic
values, but they also play a key role in regulating urban
microclimates. In fact, urban wetlands can be a solution
for cities struggling with the urban heat island (UHI) effect.
Especially in a healthy state, they absorb heat and reduce
temperatures in their surroundings. We investigated thisUHI reduction service in Mexico City and published a compendium guide with the Climate Centre.

Ethiopia’s Central Rift Valley lakes are under threat bynegative impacts from human activities in the last two
decades. To reverse the worsening situation, various stakeholders including Ethiopia Wildlife Conservation Authority(EWCA), local communities, and Wetlands International are
working closely on a number of initiatives. One of these is
the formation of four community-based youth associations
whose livelihoods are directly linked to the lakes. They
have been trained on restoration and alternative livelihoods, wetlands management and negotiation skills. So far,restoration has been conducted in over 700 hectares by
862 youth members.

In June 2020, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of AEWA,
the Agreement on the Conservation of African-EurasianMigratory Waterbirds. Wetlands International is proud to bea long-standing partner and serve on the Technical Committee of AEWA. Together with AEWA we have worked onlandmark projects and tools such as the Climate Resilient
Flyways Project, the Critical Site Network Tool, Conservation Status Reviews and the Wings Over Wetlands partnership that delivered significant outcomes for the bettermentof waterbird populations, their habitats, and wetland communities.

https://www.wetlands.org/casestudy/urban-wetlands-for-cooler-cities/

https://www.wetlands.org/news/youth-power-in-restoring-ethiopias-central-rift-valley-lakes/

https://www.wetlands.org/news/aewa-25-years-of-successful-flyway-conservation-in-practice/https://www.wetlands.org/news/march-registers-a-recordnumber-of-fires-in-the-pantanal/

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

Wetlands International Annual Review 20209

Over 2020-2030, Wetlands International aims to safeguard and restore tens of
millions of hectares of wetlands, bringing multiple returns for nature and people.
Our theory of change encapsulates the three main phases of our work:
to inspire, mobilise and upscale.
For this period, we are orientating our work to achieve three, interconnected global impacts:
healthy wetlands, resilient wetland communities, and reduced climate risks.
Our vision, targets and strategic interventions are shaped according to landscapes.
We focus on three broad categories of wetland landscapes: Coasts and Deltas, Rivers and Lakes, and Peatlands.
“Streams” of work are defined according to the specific contexts of these wetland landscape types.

Co
as
ts
&

ds for a health
etlan
ier
w
y
wo
h
t
rld
al
e
H
s
P
e
e
k
a
a
l
tla
s
lta
de

&
ers
Riv

nds

ResilientCommunities

ReducedClimate Risks

Wetland habitats andfunctions safeguarded
and restored: We
aim to help conservea selection of the mostintact wetland ecosystems andrestore others within a full range of
wetland types across the world. We
also aim to restore other freshwater
systems, peatlands, deltas and coastal
ecosystems for their intrinsic, culturaland ecosystem-service values. We
will prioritise ecological networks thatconnect landscapes, such as flyways
and swim-ways.

Water and foodsecured for wetlandcommunities: We
aim to prevent further
wetland loss anddegradation that undermines thenatural productivity and water storage
capacities of peatlands, floodplains,mangrove forests, deltas and lakes.
We aim to improve and diversify the
livelihoods of people dependent on
wetlands, and promote best practices
in agriculture and aquaculture,
integrating wetland values into the
local economy.

Wetland carbon storessecured and enhanced:
We aim to bringwetlands into activities
to adapt to and mitigate
climate change, which is otherwise athreat to the integrity of all wetlands.
Improving the condition of peatlands,
river systems and coastal ecosystems
such as mangroves, saltmarshes andsea-grass beds will also reduce theiremissions of greenhouse gases andreturn many to their role as carbon
sinks.

Wetland species
recovered: Building on
our long track record forwaterbird conservation,
we will contribute to theconservation of wetland
biodiversity by working on selecteddslangroups
flagship speciesetandofWyspecies linked
tospecific
habitats.
thReduced societal
conflict anddisplacementfrom wetlands:
We will in particularstrive to resolve situations where
deterioration of wetlands – caused
by upstream abstraction, climatechange or population growth -contributes to loss of livelihoods,
human displacement, conflict andmigration. Where necessary, we
will use peacebuilding and conflict
resolution measures to address
imbalanced power relations between
stakeholders, building capacity forvulnerable and marginalised people
to defend their rights to water andwetland resources.

l

ced
du
Re

Healthy
Wetlands

Healthy
Wetlands

Hea

INTRODUCTION TO THE
NEW STRATEGIC INTENT
2020-2030

Climate R
isks

ResilientCommunities

Res

s&
st

nt

e

s
lta
de

ili

ReducedClimate Risks

Co

mmu niti e s

Wetland Nature-based
Solutions integrated
into infrastructuredevelopments: We
aim to steer urban water
infrastructure investment and landuse planning towards using wetlands
to meet challenges such as water
insecurity and flooding that areconventionally addressed by civilengineering – an approach that oftencauses further loss and deteriorationof wetlands.

s
and
atl
Pe

Rivers
&

lak
es

Co
a

According to our strategic framework, we work in three wetland landscape types to upscale solutions and achieve six
outcomes. In turn, these result in three impacts, Healthy Wetlands, Resilient Communities and Reduced Climate Risks.
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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

Wetlands International Annual Review 202011

ACHIEVEMENTS
This chapter presents our results achieved in 2020.
We have organised these achievements along our three streams
of work (Coasts and Deltas, Rivers and Lakes, and Peatlands) in
relation to the ambition laid out in our Strategic Intent 2020-2030.
The section below summarises the first steps taken towards our targets.

Achievements described below are the result of our teamacross the world working in collaboration with many otherpartners, locally and internationally. These are a selection
from a much wider range of results, and in several cases
are based on work that was started in previous years. We
are highlighting those achievements where Wetlands
International’s role or contribution was particularly
significant.
In short, positive steps were made last year towards our2030 targets despite the significant disruption in all
programmes caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. At theend of 2020, we believe we have established a solid
foundation for future delivery and are largely on track
towards our 2030 targets.
Impact Area - Healthy Wetlands
Results that stand out include:• launching the Global Mangrove Watch Platform thatmakes geospatial information related to mangrovesworldwide available for policy makers and practitioners;• starting an initiative to restore 2,500 ha of mangroves
in Guinea-Bissau in partnership with the Dutch Energy
company Greenchoice;• the designation of the Kabartal and Asan Conservation
Reserves as Ramsar Sites in Bihar, India and the start oftheir respective management plans; and• starting the phase 3 of the internationally acclaimed“PeatRus” project that expands the restoration ofpeatlands to 11 provinces and enables the emissions
reductions to be included in Russia’s enhanced
Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

Impact Area - Resilient Wetland Communities
Highlights include:• an agreement with government authorities reachedby communities with our support that will promotebetter practices in island cattle raising, tourism andreal estate development in the Argentinian Paraná Delta(376,000 ha);• 200 hectares of land restored in the Ziway-Shalla basin
in Ethiopia through community managed enclosuresites. A quarter of a million seedlings were planted andphysical soil and water conservation structures built to
reduce sedimentation into Lake Ziway; and• the roll-out on a national scale by the Indonesian
government of 3 successful peat-wise local businessmodels. In the district of Tapanuli Selatan we also
restored 51 ha of peatlands and strengthened
communities through the establishment of Bio-rights
contracts with 15 community-based organisations.
Impact Area - Reduced Climate Risks
Key results achieved include:• developing a joint plan for establishing a large
programme on Building with Nature in Asia, incollaboration with partners and government agencies
from China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and thePhilippines;• launching a partnership agreement with Boskalis,a global leader in dredging and maritime services, toenhance coastal wetland habitats that provide some of
the greatest carbon stores for Blue Carbon;• the adoption of peatland protection and restorationin the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with•paludiculture becoming eligible for payments that will
promote peat-wise land management; andincreased uptake of wetland solutions in governmental
NDCs reported to the UNFCCC that increase action to
reduce emissions and repair drained peatlands at ahuge scale, for example in Argentina, Ireland, Russia andPeru.

Setbacks
Of course, not everything went according to plan. Many ofour programmes suffered delays and required substantial
replanning due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. For
example, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)“drainability assessment” to help identify where palm
oil plantations should be phased out and restored
to functional peatlands was delayed, as face-to-faceinteractions were not possible. Fortunately, there wasunderstanding shown by our donors and in several cases
support to use project resources to help local communities
adapt (see the article on page 22).
On the following pages we report our 2020 achievements
per stream and impact area, indicating the progress
towards our 2030 targets.

OUR
SCORINGSYSTEMOn track to exceed
target (we willachieve the target
before 2030)

We expect toachieve the target
by 2030

Substantial
progress, but moretime is needed toreach our target

So far, there is no
significant overall
progress

The situation isdeteriorating andwe can’t manage tomake improvements

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

13

COASTS & DELTAS
2030 GLOBAL GOAL
Our goal is to safeguard
and restore coastal wetland
ecosystems as essential featuresof resilient and productive coastal
landscapes. We will achieve ourgoal by tailoring our work to thedifferent contexts we typicallyencounter in our target areas,
ranging from heavily degraded or
modified coastal areas to intact
wetland landscapes.

Coasts & Deltas

Coasts & Deltas

Healthywetlands

Resilientwetlandcommunities

In 2020, together with Aberystwyth University, soloEO and The Nature Conservancy, we
launched a beta version of the Global Mangrove Watch platform. This online platformmakes available real time geospatial data on
trends in mangrove status, distributions andtheir values and threats. By providing thisinformation in an easy-to-use format, we help
practitioners and policy makers to plan, prioritise and monitor their mangrove conservation
and restoration projects and support integration in climate, development and conservation
policies (see also page 38).
We started a partnership with Dutch energy
provider Greenchoice to accelerate and support climate change mitigation by protecting
and restoring wetlands that yield climate,biodiversity and community benefits. As afirst step, we initiated a 2500 ha restoration
project in Guinea-Bissau that will restore mangroves on abandoned rice fields.
In Indonesia, participation in the international
waterbird census has grown substantially, withno less than 500 people from government,
NGOs and bird clubs joining the annual count,covering 120 sites. As the monitoring has
advanced, the Ministry of Environment andForestry adopted the International Waterbird
Census as the monitoring modality for protected areas, as a part of the National Partnershipfor Conservation of Migratory Birds and Their
Habitat.
By 2030, we aim tosafeguard 2 million
hectares of high value
coastal wetlands,
including those sites
which make up vitalwildlife migration
corridors.

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

We formalised partnership agreements withpublic authorities in Argentina to support thedevelopment of a land-use management planof the Victoria Islands Multiple Use Reserve,a large sector of the Paraná Delta (376,000ha). We are supporting the recently created
Planning Committee to implement better
production practices. Adapting activities suchas island cattle raising, tourism and real estatedevelopment, so that they safeguard wetland
functions will help restore vital fishing andbeekeeping, and provide habitat for the marshdeer, capybara, and emblematic migratory
birds.
By 2030, we aim tointegrate wetlands into
8 million hectares ofcoastal production
systems.

Coasts & Deltas

Reducedclimate risks
Substantial momentum was created for
Building with Nature uptake across Asia
through global stakeholder meetings andconsultations in China, India, Indonesia,
Malaysia and the Philippines. Government
partners indicated their interest in Building
with Nature solutions and committed tocollaborate on developing a large programmethat would leverage around €2 billion in
relevant investments by 2030.

After nearly 5 years of implementation, our
Building with Nature Indonesia programme in
Demak won the prestigious Flood and Coastaward by the UK Environment Agency in the
categories “international excellence” and“coastal management”. This offers a strong
encouragement to further expand this work
across the continent.
We launched a partnership with Boskalis,a global leader in dredging and maritime
services, to enhance coastal wetland habitatsthat provide some of the greatest carbon
stores Blue Carbon. Further, we also aim toenhance the sustainability performance ofthe sector at large by exploring opportunities
for impact mitigation in coastal engineering
projects and promoting widespread adoptionof Building with Nature solutions.
With partners in the Ecoshape consortium, we
completed a new book that presents Building
with Nature concepts and solutions (see also
page 37). Summarising dozens of applications
in different settings, the book is one of thebest global resources for those interested
in applying Nature-based Solutions in bothcoastal and freshwater environments.
Eleven universities in Indonesia incorporated
our Building with Nature training modules
in their curricula. As a result, about 2,500
students will be trained each year which will
help create a new generation of engineers
skilled in designing Building with Nature
solutions. 750 people from many countries
and disciplines were trained in two Massive
Open Online Courses (MOOC) on Building
with Nature in collaboration with the Delft
University of Technology.
By 2030, we aim
to mainstream
Building with Natureand promote Blue
Carbon solutions,influencing €10 billionof investments incoastal infrastructure
solutions.

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

15

RIVERS & LAKES
2030 GLOBAL GOAL
Our goal is to catalyse investment tosafeguard and restore rivers, lakes
and their accompanying wetlands,
as part of wider freshwater systems;
and to provide water security
for people and nature, climate
resilience, and sustainable andpeaceful landscapes.

Rivers & Lakes

Healthywetlands
Water resource and climate scenarios werecompleted for the Upper Niger basin andthe Inner Niger Delta. These showed thatdrier years will increase significantly and,in combination with the current plans for
agricultural and energy development in theregion, will place the livelihoods of delta
communities based on fisheries and farming
under high stress.

The Ugandan government started aprocess to establish a specific law on
wetland management in addition to the
National Environment Act. This should help
ensure stronger wetland governance andmanagement and reduce disaster risks.
In India, the Kabartal Wetland and Asan
Conservation Reserve have been designatedas Ramsar Sites and we are supporting the
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate
Change and Government of Bihar in theirrespective management plans. The Asan site
is a 444 ha stretch of the Asan River running
down to its confluence with the Yamuna
River in Dehradun district of Uttarakhand
and supports 330 species of birds. Kabartal
covers 2,620 ha of the Indo-Gangetic plains, inBegusarai district of the state of Bihar and acts
as a vital flood buffer for the region as well as
providing livelihood opportunities and critical
habitat for biodiversity. In the Himalayas, theSouth Asia team prepared an inventory ofhigh-altitude wetlands (HAWs) along with aguidebook for managers of HAWs to assist in
integrated management plans.
By 2030, we aim tosafeguard 10 million
hectares of highvalue river and lake
wetlands, focusing infive basins.

In the Lac Debo-Youwarou biodiversity
hotspot, in the Inner Niger Delta, Mali,
7 village chiefs signed a memorandum
agreeing to sustainable forest managementfor 2,000 ha of restored flooded forest. This
demonstrates that significant restoration work
can be undertaken and anchored in local
agreements despite ongoing insecurity in Mali.
In Eastern Africa, Wetland Management Plans(WMPs), Monographs and Project Investment
Plans (CIPs) for 3 transboundary wetlands:
Sio-Siteko in Kenya and Uganda; Semliki in
DR Congo and Uganda; and Sango-Minziro in
Uganda and Tanzania were completed andendorsed by the respective governments.
In Ethiopia, in the Abijatta-Shalla basin, an
assessment of the management requirementsof the national park was completed.

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

Rivers & Lakes

Resilientwetlandcommunities
We launched a 5-year Water, Peace andSecurity programme, supported by the

Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs,that is implemented in partnership withIHE Delft (lead), World Resources Institute,International Alert, the Hague Centre
for Strategic Studies and Deltares. The
programme will stimulate dialogue inMali, Eastern Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan
around solutions to conflicts where water
insecurity is an important factor.
In Lac Wegnia, and the Sourou Valleyin Mali and in Ziway-Shalla, Ethiopia,
coalitions of farmers, local actors inagriculture value chains and local
governments have been established topromote innovations towards sustainableagricultural water and wetland use, inpartnership with Caritas, Hydrosolutions
and IWMI with the support of the Swiss
Agency for Development and Cooperation.
200 ha of land was restored in theZiway-Shalla basin in Ethiopia, throughcommunity managed enclosure sites.
A quarter of a million seedlings wereplanted and physical soil and water
conservation structures built to reduce
the sedimentation of Lake Ziway that is
reducing its capacity and risking higher
rates of evaporation and salinisation.
In India, the development of over 50
grassroot development plans (Gram
Panchayat Development Plans) werecompleted along with 7 district-leveldisaster management plans that will assist
in the future leveraging of resources forthe implementation of ecosystem-basedrisk reduction measures.
The status of 70,000 ha of peatbogs andfreshwater marshes in two internationally
important Ramsar sites in the Puna regionof the High Andes in Argentina and Peru
was improved through management andrestoration actions implemented withlocal communities.

By 2030, we aim tosafeguard and restore
60 million hectares of
wetlands as integral
elements of productive
river and lakelandscapes.

Rivers & Lakes

Reducedclimate risks
A core partnership with the International
Water Management Institute, CARE andInternational Alert for the Blue Lifelines fora Secure Sahel “Big Idea” was establishedto develop landscape propositions in key
wetland landscapes and a strategy to engage
on these with the World Bank, the United
Nations Convention to Combat Desertification,
the European Union and the African Union’s
Commission for the Great Green Wall Initiative.
The government of Argentina recognised thecontributions made by wetlands to climatechange adaptation and mitigation in its
Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)
report presented to the UNFCCC in December
2020. This is an important step in integrating
wetlands conservation and restoration needs
into government climate financing priorities.
By 2030, we aimthat €500 million
is committed toenable Naturebased Solutions infreshwater wetlands,
for climate mitigation
and adaptation.

Wetlands International Annual Review 202017

PEATLANDS
2030 GLOBAL GOAL
Our goal is to scale up theconservation and restoration ofpeatlands as a contribution tobiodiversity conservation, climatechange mitigation and adaptation,and sustainable development. For
this, it is vital to ensure that all
remaining undrained peatlands stayintact, while 50 million hectares ofdrained peatlands are restored by
2050.

Peatlands

Healthywetlands

Peatlands

In Eastern Africa, inventory work completed
in the Nile Equatorial Lakes, the Sudd andthe Blue Nile sub-systems showed the total
area of peatlands and other organic soils in
the Nile Basin amounts to about 30,445 km2(3,044,500 ha) with a peat carbon stock of
4.2 to 10 giga-tonnes of organic carbon. As
this represents 5-10% of the total tropicalpeatland carbon stock, it shows the potential
for carbon emission avoidance for thecountries concerned.

As a member of the NDC partnership, welaunched a policy brief Locking-up Carbon
in Wetlands with AGWA at Stockholm Water
Week. The brief showcases the importanceof reducing carbon emissions from wetlands
and has stimulated governments to consider
seriously including wetlands as componentsof their NDCs under the UNFCCC.

Work on high altitude peatlands or bofedalesin the High Andes resulted in improved

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

By 2030, we aim tosafeguard over 20
million hectares ofhigh value peatlands,
including bringing
5 major peatland
landscapes backinto good ecologicalcondition.

In Russia, we started Phase 3 of the awardwinning “PeatRus” project which will expand
wetland restoration to 11 regions in the
coming 3 years. By the end of 2020, fire risk
was reduced in 95,000 ha, climate-smart
rewetting completed on 65,000 ha andecosystem functions restored on 22,000 haof peatlands. Once completed, the estimatedGHG emission reductions are 324,000 to
650,000 tonnes CO2eq per year. Knowledge
from this work has been incorporated in the
Russian Federation’s Nationally Determined
contribution (NDC) as reported to the UNFCCC.

In Indonesia, we supported the government’s
Peat Restoration Agency to complete
peatland ecosystem restoration plans inanother 4 hydrological units to reach 14
units overall. We supported the Verraaccredited carbon accounting, project
management and monitoring of the largest
REDD+ tropical peatland restoration project(Katingan Mentaya), totalling 149,880 ha ofintact peatswamp forest, combined with thesustainable management of 156,00 ha in themixed-use community buffer zone with our
long-standing partner Permian Global.

18

management trialled successfully in 56 ha ofpeatbogs and a further 130 ha was restored.

Resilientwetlandcommunities

In Indonesia, we set up 3 successful peatwise local business models which are now
being rolled out on a national scale by thegovernment. Further, in the district of Tapanuli
Selatan, we restored 51 ha of peatlands andbuilt strengthened communities through theestablishment of Bio-rights contracts with 15
community-based organisations. This included
trainings on Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk
Reduction (Eco-DRR), in this case preventionof peat fires, sustainable peat management
and the diversification of livelihoods.

Peatlands

Reducedclimate risks
In Europe we were successful in getting
peatland protection and restoration included
as a valuable measure in the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP) and “paludiculture” asa land-use that is eligible for CAP payments.
This expands the economic basis for peat-wiseland management.
Converting damaging palm oil plantations tosustainable business models relies on peatwise crops, and for this we took steps forward
under the Tropical Paludiculture Forum aspart of our Indonesian Peat Care Village
Programme (with KMITRAAN/ BRG-REF).
Unfortunately, we were unable to make muchprogress on the RSPO drainability assessment
due to Covid-19 restrictions which prevented
in-person consultations.
By 2030, we will
reduce the impact ofpeat-based industriesin 10 million hectaresof peatland, with afocus on palm oil, pulp
and timber.

By 2030, we aim toenable communitybased conservation andrestoration of 10 million
hectares of peatlands.

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

19

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 andactions to realise our long-term ambitions, in turn benefiting people and nature. We indicatedthat the Dutch Postcode Lottery grant for 2018-2020 would be used mainly as “seed finance”, toenable upscaling and application by others of effective wetland solutions. We also proposed toinvest in measures which help Wetlands International raise wetlands higher on the agenda andimprove 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 brought our stories and experience on
wetlands into the spotlight by publishinga landmark book Water Lands and a variety
of media. We used these stories as a means
to raise awareness about wetlands andtheir values, as well as to engage youth
groups and mobilise their support forinvesting in wetlands as Nature-based
Solutions. Part of the grant was allocated toincrease our communications capacities andcompetencies, particularly in social media
channels and allowed us to establish newcollaborations and platforms to amplify our
messages.
See page 62:
Bringing
wetlands to thefore

We achieved greatly enhanced recognitionof the need to improve the condition of
wetlands and water as part of efforts toaddress human security and bring peace

20

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020in the Sahel. In particular, we forged aninternational and African coalition who arecommitted to mobilise action to safeguard andrestore wetlands in the region.
See page 54:
Bring on theflood

We forged an international, inter-sectoral
partnership to mobilise Building with Nature
in Asia and gained additional politicalsupport and resources to help materialise thisambition in the five countries of Indonesia,
the Philippines, India, Malaysia and China.
See page 30:
Five years of
Building with
NatureWe re-established our global leadershiprole in championing and enabling theconservation and restoration of peatlands,
and opened up a series of partnership
opportunities to create impact on the groundin Europe.
See page 18:
peatlands
section in theachievements

To further boost our climate change
mitigation work, we established a new
global programme on wetland carbon andforged three new strategic partnerships(with Greenchoice, Boskalis, Commonlandand Landscape Finance Lab), which will help
establish and accelerate a pipeline of highquality large scale mangrove and peatland
recovery projects for carbon financing.
See page 46:
Carbonpartnerships tosave wetlands
and the climate

Operational improvements include a new
finance system that will enhance ourefficiency and improve financial management
standards, the mobilisation of the Network
Management Team, the further institutional
development of individual offices andsupported staff to enable good internal,
partner and stakeholder communications
during the Covid-19 pandemic.
See page 70:
Functioning of
the organisation

We established a unique niche and project
portfolio for wetlands in cities that isleveraging large-scale Building with Natureinvestments, for example in urban flood
management, as well as highlighting thepositive contribution that wetlands have forurban heat island effect (UHI) reduction.
See page 8:
urban wetlands
for heat-proofing
citiesWe played a significant role in establishing
the Global Mangrove Alliance, leading to asuite of new mangrove projects in Eastern
Africa, and also the establishment of Global
Mangrove Watch which provides realtime information on trends in mangrove
distribution and data.
See page 38:
Watching
mangroves fromspace – andprotecting themon the ground

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

21

STORY HIGHLIGHTSWith our partners in India, we
provided emergency relief
supplies and training courses on
how wetlands management canalso create local employment for
returning labour migrants.
We helped the Orang Asli people
in Malaysia’s peatlands establish
partnerships with private companies
to sell their handicrafts and sponsor
ecological restoration.
With our partners in Brazil, we
provided food and clean water tomore than 400 indigenous andtraditional communities’ families
across the Pantanal.
Now is the time to plan and develop
along pathways that promote bothsocial and ecological healing andcreate resilience for both nature andthose who depend on it.

SUPPORTING WETLAND
COMMUNITIES THROUGH
THE PANDEMIC AND ON TO
A BLUE-GREEN RECOVERYBy Fred Pearce

It was the largest national lockdown in the world. In March 2020,
with Covid-19 spreading fast through its cities, India saw tens of
millions of poor migrant workers going home to their villages.
From Uttarakhand in the north to Bihar in the east and Gujarat
in the west, that often meant workers and their families walking
hundreds of kilometres back to communities in wetlands.
Swollen by the new arrivals, those communities urgently needed
basic supplies of food, medicines, personal protection and jobs.
But they also needed assistance as people, often for the firsttime, sought to survive by taking up employment on farms andwithin wetlands. A humanitarian disaster threatened to turn into
a significant surge in demand for natural resources.
Farmers in Kenya and Uganda planted 9,170 trees and bamboo seedlings to help restore the Sio-Siteko transboundary wetland. Asschools were temporarily closed due to the outbreak of Covid-19, children joined the practical restoration lessons.
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Wetlands International South Asia provided livelihoodtraining to enable people new to wetland areas to take up
wetland-based agriculture.

Wetlands International’s teams, headed by South Asia
director Ritesh Kumar and with support from humanitarian
partners such as Caritas and Seeds India, organised support
for the returning migrants and their communities, inlandscapes where the partners have ongoing engagements.
They provided emergency relief supplies and emotional
support. And when the communities were prepared, they
provided training courses in how wetlands management
can also create local employment to help fill their bellies,
while safeguarding the ecology of vital the hydrological“buffers” that provide abundant food and water, andprevent rivers flooding local farmland.
The challenges were great, with pandemic restrictions
making access to wetland communities especially difficult.
But the gains were great too, in helping people suddenly
thrown back on wetlands for their survival to appreciate
the resources at their disposal, and to share experiences
and learn how to manage them better.
Similar stories have played out in wetlands around theworld during the pandemic. Even where there have been
no forced migrations, locked-down communities havebeen increasingly reliant on their wetlands for food and24

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

livelihoods. And Wetlands International has brought avital skillset to help them. Its history of engagementwith wetland communities, network of contacts andenvironmental expertise means it has often been theessential intermediary to bring emergency aid to where it
is most needed, and to bolster wetlands management tosecure the future of the wetlands themselves.

Alongside the trainings to promote wetland-based agriculture, the team organised emergency responses to support hygiene andhealth in the wetland communities.

From the Saloum delta in Senegal to the lakesidecommunities of Argentina’s Andean mountains, andvillages in the mangrove swamps of coastal Indonesia,
Wetlands International has been providing guidance andeverything from the masks and antiseptic gel that save
lives, to the computers, internet connections and drones
that allow cut-off communities to communicate with theoutside world and monitor their wetlands.
“The pandemic should be a wake-up call,” said CEO Jane
Madgwick in April, as the virus spread across the planet.
“Now is the time to plan and develop along pathways that
promote both social and ecological healing,” to provide
resilience for both nature and those who depend on it. The
world talks about the need for a “green recovery” from thepandemic. Wetlands International sees it as a blue-green

While facing new restrictions of the pandemic, drones have helped communities
monitor their wetlands from a distance.

Wetlands International Annual Review 202025

People whoare suddenly
thrown backon wetlands
for their
survival reallyappreciate theresources attheir disposal

Wetlands International helped the Orang Asli people in
Malaysia sell their wetlands products to partners and privatecompanies while they were cut off from tourists.

recovery. In the long run, the health of the wetlands will be
the best defence for the health of their communities.
Needs and threats have been diverse for wetlandcommunities. The Orang Asli people in Malaysia, who
depend on the Gombak River and natural resources in
the local peatlands, have been cut off not just from vital
supplies but also from eco-tourists. Their main source ofincome in recent times has been selling wetland products
such as woven bags, carpets and wild vegetables to visiting
tourists. So in 2020, as a continuation of its work building
their capacity to conserve and restore the river and streamsof their homeland, Wetlands International has helped themestablish partnerships with private companies to sell theirhandicraft and to sponsor ecological restoration.
In Indonesia, Wetlands International switched its training
courses to Zoom and WhatsApp. It allowed communities
in Demak, on the shores of northern Java, to continue
restoring the mangroves that protect their villages fromstorms and developing eco-friendly aquaculture. Keeping
up the pace on these projects, known as Building with
Nature, was especially vital when outsiders were banned
from entering the villages, fish markets had collapsed andresidents working in nearby factories were being laid off.

Elsewhere, our team in Indonesia, under director
Nyoman Suryadiputra, has been drawing up plans to help
communities combat an epidemic of Dengue fever thatcan lead to hospitalization in facilities that are alreadyunder pressure from the influx of Covid-19 patients. The
innovative idea is to construct small artificial wetlands
containing water-purifying aquatic plants and fish that
predate mosquito larvae at mosques and other public
places. The mini-wetlands will keep clean the sharedablution waters and help prevent the proliferation of themosquitoes that transmit the fever.
Indigenous communities in the world’s largest inland
wetland, the Pantanal in the heart of South America, were
hit in 2020 by a crisis within a crisis. As Covid-19 began
its killing spree, the worst drought there in half a century
unleashed unprecedented wildfires across the desiccatedwetland. Our Brazilian team, under Rafaela Nicola’s
direction, partnered with SOS Pantanal and an aid initiative
Uniao BR to provide food and clean water to more than
400 indigenous and traditional communities’ families
across the Pantanal. Under the Corredor Azul Programme,
Wetlands International worked in support of local
community livelihoods, equipping the Kadiweu indigenous

Residents of Demak continued work to restore mangroves while outsiders were banned from entering the villages.
Wetlands International Annual Review 202027

With the fires
extinguishedthey started
a tree nursery
to help
re-establish
native forestsin the charred
wetlands

THANK YOU

Tree nurseries were set up to restore the burnt forest.

community’s ad-hoc volunteer wetland fire brigade withwater bombs and protective clothing, and facilitating
the sharing of fire-fighting expertise with neighbouring
villages.
With the fires extinguished, they started a tree nursery tohelp re-establish native forests in the charred wetland.
But the big lesson for the blue-green recovery was not
lost along the Paraná-Paraguay river system of which thePantanal is a vital part. Without wetlands, fires are anannual menace.
Clearly, the global pandemic can be seen as a threat towetlands, as local communities and returning migrant
populations are forced to rely ever more on their products
to survive. But it is also an opportunity. For the virus andthe lockdowns both reveal afresh the vital importance towetland communities of their wetland resources.

MR. I NYOMANSURYADIPUTRA
DIRECTOR WETLANDS INTERNATIONAL - INDONESIA

Celebrating Mr. I Nyoman Suryadiputra’s exceptional
accomplishments in 25 years serving Wetlands
International in Indonesia
This year, Wetlands International is celebrating its 38th
anniversary in Indonesia. For many of these years it was
led by director I Nyoman Suryadiputra, who worked with
passion to foster staff, pioneer new techniques, implement
and guide various collaborations with the government,
knowledge institutions, the private sector, other nongovernmental organisations and community groups.
Pak Nyoman’s leadership guided the development of
Wetlands International in Indonesia, including setting up

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

our legal entity Yayasan Lahan Basah and becoming theleading non-governmental organisation for managing
wetlands in Indonesia. More than a quarter-century
after joining this organisation, Pak Nyoman will retire as
Chairman of the Executive Board and Director of Wetlands
International in Indonesia. But birds never fly too far fromtheir nest, and neither will Pak Nyoman. With his deep
expertise in limnology, peat, mangroves, community
engagement and policies in wetlands, he will continue
to provide support to the organisation in the years tocome. We would like to recognise his grand contribution,
including to the global network of Wetlands International,
and thank him for all he has done. We wish him all the bestand look forward to future collaboration.

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

29

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Building with Nature Indonesia won
the Flood and Coastal ExcellenceAward from the British Environment
Agency.
At the coastal field school, 400 local
farmers learned to replace chemical
pesticides and fertilisers withhomemade organic alternatives intheir ponds, improving water quality
and yields.
Villages now have 420 ha ofimproved shrimp ponds with tripled
yields and doubled profits.
The Indonesian Ministry of
Maritime Affairs replicated 25 kmof permeable barriers in 13 coastal
districts.

CELEBRATING FIVE YEARSOF BUILDING WITH NATURE
IN INDONESIA
By Fred Pearce

The Building with Nature methods
and ideas are set for replication
across the Indonesian archipelago
and more widely through Asia.

Wetlands are very local. No two are the same. But whensolutions to problems work in one place, scaling up the lessons
for elsewhere can still be vital. And nowhere is that proving
more true than in Wetlands International’s Building with Nature
project in Indonesia. The five year multi-disciplinary initiative,
with Dutch engineering and Indonesian government partners,
aims to save the rapidly eroding coastline of northern Java, using
innovative methods to encourage the natural regeneration oflost mangroves. The project formally ended in 2020, but its
methods and ideas are set for replication across the Indonesianarchipelago and more widely through Asia.
Building with Nature Indonesia aimed to save the rapidly eroding coastline of northern Java, Indonesia.
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Wetlands International Annual Review 202031

The endangered milky stork is returning to the green
mangrove belt.

Many coastlines in South and Southeast Asia have lost
coastal mangroves in recent decades. They have been
widely replaced by ponds excavated to farm shrimps
and fish. But those mangroves trapped silt, and rebuffedwinds, waves, high tides and even tsunamis -- protecting
the coasts and their inhabitants from danger. So theirloss has often accelerated coastal erosion and exposed
communities to danger.
In Demak on the north coast of Java, the loss of mangroves
has triggered an invasion by the Java Sea that has reachedseveral kilometres inland, engulfing the ponds, anddrowning villages or leaving them elevated on stilts andconnected to the land by threads of raised land. Around70,000 people suffered the effects.
With its partners, Wetlands International sought to turn the
tide. Starting in the village of Timbulsloko, which is today
reached by a five-kilometre causeway past washed-awayrice fields and fish ponds, Building with Nature sought toreverse the land loss with novel technology and incentives
for locals to adopt more sustainable livelihoods that
preserved and restored the mangroves.
The technology has worked, with villages erecting a total ofnine kilometres of permeable brushwood barriers – a little
like outsize nets on tennis courts -- in the shallow waters
a few metres offshore. The barriers do not aim to stop

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the tides. Instead they mimic mangroves by capturing silt
and slowing scouring currents, allowing mangroves seeds
in the passing water to settle in the silt and re-establish
themselves. Nature does the planting, not humans.

The local community helped build permeable structures in Demak, recompensed with financial support and training for new local
economic activities.

The work of erecting and maintaining the barriers wasdone by villagers. Their labour has been recompensed
with financial support and training for new local economic
activities, through Wetlands International’s Bio-rights
conditional loan system, under which loans are written
off if the restoration work is successfully completed. “Theengagement of local communities is vital as in the long run
they are the ones, together with village government, whowill maintain the barriers,” says Yus Rusila Noor, head ofprogrammes at Wetlands International Indonesia.
Blue Forests, an Indonesian NGO that ran the coastal field
school in Demak, says some 400 local farmers learned
to replace expensive chemical pesticides and fertilizers
in their ponds with home-made organic alternatives, andfound they improved water quality and yields. Blue Forest’s
programme manager Woro Yuniati, who devised thecurriculum, says many also tried out the idea of restoring
mangroves around their ponds, to dampen the effect ofwaves.
The villages now have some 420 hectares of improved
shrimp ponds that do not compete with the regrowing
Building with Nature Indonesia has improved 420 hectares of shrimp ponds,
whereby yields have now tripled and farmers’ profits have doubled.

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33

Building with
Nature canbe applied toother Asian
countries too;Indonesia canhelp and takea leading role

Monitoring of ecological mangrove restoration in
Betahwalang Village.

mangroves. Pond yields have tripled and farmers’ profits
have doubled. Other alternative livelihoods funded by the
project include small-scale tourist developments, often
based on organised visits to the mangroves and the bird
life they attract -- though they have suffered during the
pandemic lockdown.
The barriers are now in the hands of the communities
that they protect, supported by local government
administrations and a forum of community groups called
Bina Noto Segoro (Bintoro), which is Javanese for “tomanage the sea”.
The mangroves cannot solve all the problems of thedisappearing coast, says Bregje van Wesenbeek, of
Deltares, a Dutch research institute and partner on the
project. The area is also suffering subsidence because of
the abstraction of groundwater by industry in nearby cityof Semarang. And dams and dykes on rivers draining into
the sea nearby reduce the supply of silt needed to rebuild
the coast. In mid-2020, a major tidal surge temporarily
engulfed many of the new aquaculture ponds.
Still, the project has been widely hailed as a success.
In its final weeks of formal activity at the end of 2020,
Building with Nature Indonesia won the Flood andCoastal Excellence Award from the British government’s
Environment Agency. Its engineering and social methods

are being taught into Indonesian universities and copied by
the Indonesian government elsewhere.
The Ministry of Maritime Affairs has erected around 25
kilometres of brushwood barriers on other threatened
coastlines in 13 districts across the country, including in
Lombok and Sulawesi. Some 30 million people in coastal
communities stand to benefit, says the ministry’s Hendra
Yusran Siry, who has been responsible for the upscaling.
The Indonesian government wants to share the good news
across the region, he says. “Building with Nature can beapplied to other Asian countries too, and beyond. Acrossthe world thousands of kilometres of tropical mud coasts
are suffering dramatic erosion from lost mangroves. We canhelp. Indonesia, as the world’s largest archipelago… has thepotential and experience to take a leading role.”
Coastal engineers remain hesitant, waiting to see if thetechniques are proved to work better than concrete,says Datuk Keizrul bin Abdullah, the chair of the boardof Wetlands International in neighbouring Malaysia, andone of his country’s leading civil engineers. But so far,
Malaysia, the Philippines. China, Thailand, India and the
Asian Development Bank have all expressed interest in
replicating Indonesia’s experience of Building with Nature.
Meanwhile, for the Indonesian city of Semarang, as part

The permeable structures neighbouring the village of Timbulsloko, where the project activities started.
Wetlands International Annual Review 202035

We can show
stakeholders
that Building
with Nature isviable, costeffective andacceptable
to localcommunities

Building with Nature:
Creating, Implementing andUpscaling Nature-Based Solutions
As an active Ecoshape consortium member, we collaborated to produce the book Building with Nature: Creating,
Implementing and Upscaling Nature-Based Solutions which
officially launched at the Climate Adaptation Summit inJanuary 2021. Building with Nature offers a proven, innovative approach to creating Nature-based Solutions forwater-related infrastructure that harnesses natural forces
for the benefit of the environment, economy, and society.
The book makes an urgent and compelling case for, anddescribes how to scale up, the Building with Nature approach to create sustainable infrastructure as well as richand resilient landscapes.

https://www.wetlands.org/publications/building-withnature-creatingimplementingand-upscalingnature-basedsolutions/Children cycling through their local mangrove forest.

of the Water as Leverage for Resilient Cities Initiative,
Building with Nature has developed designs that promotea landscape connection with the green belt being restoredin Demak. This urban water initiative also runs in Chennai,
India and Khulna, Bangladesh. It is pioneered by the Dutch
special envoy for international water affairs and won the2020 Dutch Design Award for best commissioning.
The plan now, Keizrul says, is to recruit other governments
and to identify one site in each country to pilot Building
with Nature solutions such as permeable structures to holdback the tides, “so we can show stakeholders it is viable,
cost-effective and acceptable to local communities.” At aworkshop in early 2020, on the eve of lockdown, Malaysianplanners, academics and government officials identified
four potential sites to pilot.
“After that, we are looking to quickly scale up to ten or
more projects in each country,” Keizrul says. “Our ambition
is to benefit tens of millions of people in cities andsettlements along vulnerable Asian coasts, lakes, rivers anddeltas, by integrating the services nature provides into civilengineering practice.”

Partners
The Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs andFisheries (MMAF)
The Indonesian Ministry of Public Works andHousing (PU)
EcoShape
Witteveen+Bos
DeltaresWageningen University & Research
UNESCO-IHE
TU Delft
Von Lieberman
Blue Forests
Kota Kita
Diponegoro University (UNDIP)
One Architecture & Urbanism
DonorsDutch Postcode Lottery
The Dutch Sustainable Water FundThe German Federal Ministry for theEnvironment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear
Safety (BMU) as part of the International Climate
Initiative (IKI)
Waterloo Foundation
Otter Foundation
Topconsortia for Knowledge and Innovation
For the entire list see Annex
Building with Nature in muddy coasts delivers multiple community benefits.

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37

STORY HIGHLIGHTSThe Global Mangrove Watch (GMW)
is an online platform that provides
remote sensing data for the realtime monitoring of mangroves.
The JAXA radar can see throughclouds that often persist in coastal
regions and collect data from every
mangrove region once a week.
The GMW platform and alerts ensurethat data on mangrove destruction isavailable to decision makers.

WATCHING MANGROVESFROM SPACE - AND
PROTECTING THEM
ON THE GROUND
By Fred Pearce

A Japanese satellite sensor circling the planet picked up an
unexpected change in the mangrove forests amid the coastal
creeks of the small West African state of Guinea-Bissau. About
300 hectares of the country’s extensive mangrove swamps in the
Safim area close to the capital Bissau showed up as a giant red
blotch on the processed satellite images. The mangroves werebeing rapidly removed.
Back at Wetlands International global office in the Netherlands,
they scanned the data and contacted Joaozinho Sa, the headof our Guinea-Bissau operation. His team immediately set off
to investigate – taking pictures, talking to local communities,
and bringing back information to share with the government’s
Institute of Biodiversity and Protected Areas (IBAP) to initiate apossible law-and-order response.
Satellite imaging of the Rufiji Delta from the Global Mangrove Watch.
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39

In Guinea-Bissau, local farmers helped break dikes to restorehydrology for ecological mangrove restoration.

This event, early in 2021, was a notable early achievement
for the Global Mangrove Watch (GMW), an online platform
supported by Wetlands International that provides remotesensing data for near real-time monitoring of one of theworld’s most important coastal ecosystems. It went live
in July 2020, using data supplied by the Advanced Land
Observing Satellite of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration
Agency (JAXA).

rich marine ecosystems.

“Global Mangrove Watch is proving of incredible value,”says Menno de Boer, our Technical Officer for Coasts
and Deltas. “Without the GMW platform, we would nothave been able to know that anything was going on.” It
could herald a new dawn for mangrove protection andrestoration.

Yet some two-thirds of mangroves worldwide are thought
to have been lost or degraded by human invasion or
sea-level rise. A fifth of that loss have been since 1980,
especially during a craze across Southeast Asia for
converting them to shrimp ponds. A 2020 study found that
Myanmar has lost more than 60% of its mangroves in just
20 years to rice paddy, oil palms, rubber and shrimp ponds
and urbanization.

Mangroves were once forgotten backwaters, falling
between the cracks in public thinking about ecosystems
worth conserving – with little of the allure of either
rainforests or coral reefs. That perception is changing.
Especially with growing recognition of their extent -they are found in 106 countries and cover more than 13
million hectares of intertidal areas, an area the size of
Bangladesh-- and their importance for climate as carbon-

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Mangroves are found in 106 countries and cover more than 13 million hectares of intertidal areas around the world.

Each year, mangroves capture millions of tonnes of carbon.
A typical hectare holds more than a thousand tonnes,
to five times more than the same area of rainforest. The
tangled roots of mangroves are also vital nurseries for an
estimated one-tenth of all marine life, as well as buffers
against rising tides, coastal storms and eroding currents.

To keep track and fight back, the Global Mangrove Watch
has been in development for almost a decade, initiatedby Wetlands International, The Nature Conservancy,
Aberystwyth University and SoloEO, in collaboration withdozens of academics, NGOs, funders and government
agencies.

A new approach to salt production that makes use of solar heat instead of fuelwood was introduced in Guinea-Bissau – saving 3.1 kilos of wood per kilo of salt
produced and reducing mangrove loss significantly.

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

41

A typicalhectare ofmangroveholds morethan athousandtonnes ofcarbon, up
to five times
more than thesame area ofrainforest
In Panama City, mangroves offer the cheapest and mosteffective system of defence against storms and flooding,which has devestated the city in previous years.

The JAXA radar collects data from every mangrove region
around once a week. The advantage of radar monitoring isthat it can see through clouds that often persist in coastal
regions, says de Boer. A specially devised model thencompares the raw data with stored baseline information,and sends out an alert if there has been a change. In justone month, it issued more than a thousand mangrove
disturbance alerts.
The changes may be complete clear-cuts or something
more subtle, such as defoliation or construction work amid
the trees. The images from Guinea-Bissau showed a dirt
road constructed across a creek near the site of mangrove
disturbance – evidence of a new human invasion.
As well as triggering rapid responses to illegal mangrove
conversion, the GMW data will generate annual maps
identifying areas under threat and forest loss trends. This
will all support the work of the Global Mangrove Alliance,a coalition of NGOs set up by Wetlands Internationaland others in 2017 with the ultimate aim of increasing
mangrove cover by 20% from 2015 to 2030 – making goodthe losses suffered since 1980.

Not only do mangroves offer vital protection for coastal communities, their tangled roots are also vital nurseries for an
estimated one-tenth of all marine life.

This is the latest phase in work by Wetlands International
over many years highlighting the importance of mangrovesand promoting their protection and restoration throughinteractions with governments and local communities, from
Guinea-Bissau and the Rufiji delta in Tanzania to Java inIndonesia and the coastal defences of Panama City.
These local networks help identify and root out mangrove
plunderers, draw up local management plans with
communities, and help with the nitty gritty of mangrove
restoration, whether through planting or protecting habitatto allow natural reseeding and recovery.
Guinea-Bissau has long been a focus. In total, it has some
250,000 hectares of mangroves. They protect more than
70% of its coastline. Unusually, it has seen a net gain in
mangroves of 330 hectares since 1996. One reason has
been our long-running work in the Cacheu River Mangroves
National Park in northern Guinea Bissau. Covering almost
90,000 hectares, it has the largest dense assemblage ofmangroves in West Africa. We have helped with restorationof mangroves on abandoned rice fields in many areas ofthe park.

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The mostimportant partof the Global
Mangrove
Watch
platformand alerts isgetting thedata in frontof decision
makersThe Global Mangrove Watch tracks changes in mangrove
cover over time, such as this loss of mangrove cover inSamarinda, Indonesia, between 1996 and 2016.

So what happened after the GMW alert in Guinea-Bissau?
The team investigating the alert found that the mangroveswamp was being turned by villagers into a rice field. But
it was entirely legal, part of a government plan to promote
food security in poor communities. “We cannot intervene,”
Sa’s mission reported. “But we hope we have sensitized
the state authorities so they will reduce future proliferationof rice fields in mangrove areas.”
It was a frustrating end to the episode, says de Boer. But
Pete Bunting of Aberystwyth University agrees there is an
upside. “The most important part of the GMW platform andalerts is getting the data in front of decision makers.”

Partners
Aberystwyth University
soloEOThe Nature Conservancy
NASA
University of Cambridge
JAXA
IUCN
WWF
Conservation International
Griffith University
Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Staff
profileElizabeth Wamba
Regional
Communications Officer
Office: East Africa
Who is Elizabeth Wamba?
I grew up and studied in Kenya. I had a brief stint as ajournalist before venturing into corporate communications.
I had always been interested in nature and wildlife
conservation turned out to be more than indulging in ahobby. Field work was a constant breath of fresh air – fromdriving through Africa’s iconic national parks and reserves
teeming with diverse wildlife and vegetation to theoccasional sail into marine parks. I was intrigued not justby biodiversity, but also the linkages to communities andthe intricate, delicate and sometimes unique relationships
between humans and nature. In my current role as Regional
Communications Officer for Eastern Africa, I explore thewetland ecosystems of the region and the lives they
support with the same eagerness and excitement.
What was your biggest personal work achievement in
2020?
This must be joining Wetlands International at the onsetof an unknown and growing pandemic and having to learn
and work under strict containment measures. Despite thesechallenges, the support from my colleagues in programmes
and communications smoothened the transition. I learned
new terminology and concepts specific to wetland
ecosystems. I was also able to pick up communications
work after a nine-month gap and offer much-needed
support to our programmatic objectives.

What is the nicest thing about working at Wetlands
International?
That would be understanding your role in the bigger
picture and then working together as a team to achieve
programmatic and organisational goals and objectives.
I love that I can steer the communications function
fully, giving ownership to results, achievements andlessons learned. The knowledge and expertise within theorganisation is extensive and colleagues are always willingto share what they know. For example, within three months,
I had learned loads about mangroves and their ecosystems
and integrated water resources management, which is awhole new life! Learning is continuous here and that’s big
for me!
What do you want to achieve in 2021?
Working in close collaboration with colleagues, I hope topositively contribute to the communities that live in andderive basic services from wetlands in this region. Besides
that, I would like to raise the profile of our work andthe substantive role of wetlands in the socio-economic,
political and cultural well-being of the communities wework with. Finally, in the longer term, I hope to pursue
innovative ways to engage the youth, whose energy, powerand creativity in restoring our environment is urgently
needed, while borrowing from the wisdom of elders who
have always been the custodians of Africa’s wetlands.
What is your favourite species and why?
Tough question! I have loved cats since childhood, withmy wild favourite being the leopard. Nonetheless, I remainboth intrigued and terrified by sea creatures such as theoctopus and have a never-ending fascination for birds. Isn’t
it phenomenal and profound how each species fits snugly
into the cog of life and that there is still so much we don’t
know?

DonorsOak Foundation
COmON Foundation
National Philantropic Trust
DOB Ecology
Dutch Postcode Lottery
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Wetlands are the planet’s biggest
terrestrial carbon sinks, holding thegreatest potential of all ecosystems
for delivering Nature-based
Solutions to climate change.
While more than a hundred countries
have mangrove forests, fewer
than 30 initially included themin their Nationally Determined
Contributions (NDCs) for climate
mitigation.
Countries can review their NDCs
every five years and include the “lowhanging fruit” that tackling Blue
Carbon offers.

CARBON PARTNERSHIPSTO SAVE WETLANDS
AND THE CLIMATE
By Fred Pearce

We are ready to support Ireland
to turn its knowledge into action,
restoring its amazing peatlands tobenefit people and nature for thelong term.

“After living in Muara Manompas village for almost fifty years,
this is the first time we have a programme where the community
is really involved.” The words came from Waldemart Silitonga,
a leader in one of twenty villages signing up to a Wetlands
International project in late 2020 to rewet peatlands in theIndonesian province of North Sumatra.
The words signified community buy-in for a key pilot project
recruiting villagers to block drainage canals and reinstate
cultivation of wetland-adapted crops, known as paludiculture,across hundreds of hectares. The hope was that it could also
kick-start a revival of peatlands in Sumatra and across Indonesia,
as part of a wider engagement of government and communities
in incorporating carbon-rich wetlands into the country’s
Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to fighting climatechange.
Wetlands like the tropical peatlands of Sumatra, Indonesia are the planet’s biggest terrestrial “carbon sinks”,
holding the greatest potential of all ecosystems for delivering Nature-based Solutions to climate change.
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Several threatened species live in the peatswamps ofSumatra, including the lesser adjutant (Leptoptilos javanicus).

Wetlands are the planet’s biggest terrestrial “carbon
sinks”, holding the greatest potential of all ecosystems fordelivering Nature-based Solutions to climate change. In the
climate debate they have so far been side-lined by concern
for tropical rainforests. But in 2020 that began to change,
with ever more governments recognising the potential toincorporate peatlands, mangroves and other wetlands intheir NDCs.
To fast track this encouraging development, Wetlands
International has been stepping up to count the carbon,
provide conservation and restoration advice and form
partnerships to help companies to contribute andgovernments to deliver on their promises. From Peru to
Mongolia, Indonesia to the Grenada, and Argentina to thePhilippines, we are using the climate agenda to help drive
global wetland restoration.
Indonesia has around 25 million hectares of peatlands
and mangroves, more than any other country. Their loss inrecent decades has haemorrhaged carbon dioxide into theatmosphere. And this continues. There are plans to drain
up to two million hectares more wetlands for plantations
and other land uses by 2030, potentially releasing
hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2.
This would be a tragedy. But the potential to end thedestruction, and begin restoration of wetlands and48

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

their carbon stores, is equally great. A major problem inachieving that is conflicting government policies, withdifferent agencies dedicated to either converting orconserving and restoring wetlands. In future, recognition of
the climate role of wetlands will hopefully tilt the balance
towards conservation and restoration.

Wetlands International has acted as a bridge between government policy and community engagement, a key approach tosafeguarding and restoring these wetlands.

In 2020, Indonesia was updating its NDC in preparation forthe planned climate COP in Glasgow at the end of the year.
Wetlands International had a seat at the table, in a Strategic
Coordination Team for Wetlands Management, to draw up
a roadmap for the NDC update, under the leadership of the
Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS).
As part of this, we are working with Conservation
International and CIFOR on pilot projects to restore
wetlands in North Sumatra -- such as the peatlands around
Muara Manompas -- and West Papua. The target is to
avoid deforestation of 80,000 hectares of mangroves andpeatland forests, preventing emissions of 30 million tonnesof CO2 – gains that can form part of the country’s NDC to
reduce emissions by 29-41% below business-as-usual in2030.
In many places in Indonesia, the pressure to drain peat
and plant oil palm remains strong. So community buy-in isessential. We have acted as a bridge between government
policy and community engagement. In Muara Manompas,
The biggest threat against peatlands in Indonesia is drainage for land use, which
often leads to frequent and prolonged floods during the wet season and becomes ahigh risk area for fires in each major dry season.

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In Muara
Manompasvillagers had
been involvedin planningthe peat
restorationfrom the start
A group of women prepare seedlings as part of the peatland
restoration work.

Silitonga said his fellow villagers had been involved inplanning the peat restoration from the start, and would
benefit from Wetlands International’s Bio-rights incentive
mechanism that reconciles paludiculture and otherpeatland-friendly livelihoods with the restoration work.
They felt they owned the programme, he said.
But this is a global effort. If the world is to reach the
1.5-degree target set in the Paris Agreement, we needurgently to safeguard and restore wetland carbon stores.
To that end, both public and private finance has to be
mobilised. That is why we are collaborating both withgovernments on their NDCs and with companies to support
best practice on responsible corporate climate action,
as they seek to achieve net zero, through combining
emissions reductions with Nature-based Solutions.
Sometimes our work on NDCs is an ongoing developmentthat builds on past efforts to restore wetlands. For example,
in Russia, our work to rewet peatlands that burned during
the infamous bush fires in Russia a decade ago, known as
PeatRus, is now in its third phase, involving seven districts.
Russia still ranks third in world emissions from drained
peatlands, but thanks to our work in helping develop its
capacity for reporting on carbon and peatlands, restoration
is likely to be an important component in the country’s
action plan for adapting to climate change.
Demonstration plots by the community group in Siak, Riau, Sumatra for integrated farming and peatland-friendly horticulture,
where a lady has harvested luffa, or ridge gourd.

A flagship project of PeatRus has been the rehabilitation of
the Orshinsky Bog, once a hub of peat extraction for fuelon the Volga floodplain in Tver, northwest of Moscow. So
far its restoration has rewetted and restored biodiversity
across some 22,000 hectares, as well as adding 320,000
tonnes of CO2 to its biomass each year.
Elsewhere:- In Peru, we have triggered the integration of theextensive Amazon and Andean peatlands into thecountry’s NDC climate mitigation programme.
- In Panama, we are helping exploit its Blue Carbon
potential while also protecting its low-lying urban areas
with mangroves.
- In Mongolia, we have been conducting assessments ofthe carbon potential of the country’s extensive
wetlands, and how the herders who occupy most ofthem can be involved in protecting them for inclusionin the country’s next NDC.
- In India, we have initiated a climate vulnerability
analysis of wetlands as part of a national
communication to the UN on its climate policies.
- In Guinea-Bissau, we have joined with the Dutch energy
company Greenchoice to initiate large-scale mangrove
restoration for climate, community and biodiversity
benefits.

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More
countries will
tap the “lowhanging fruit”
that tacklingBlue Carbon
or peatlands
offersPeatlands make up approximately one fifth of Ireland’slandscape, an immense potential to store carbon.

Further, we are working with dredging and offshore
contractor Boskalis to develop the knowledge andexpertise required to help restore coastal wetland habitat
to meet climate targets, while addressing related issues
such as biodiversity conservation.
There remains much potential. While more than a hundred
countries have mangrove forests, fewer than 30 initially
included them in their NDCs for climate mitigation. We
hope that as countries review their NDCs every five years,
more will tap the “low hanging fruit” that tackling blue
carbon or peatlands offers.
One such country could be Ireland, where a fifth of the landis covered in peat. After advice from Wetlands Internationaland others, the government in 2020 finalised a groundbreaking programme for rehabilitating its bogs, including
turning the country’s main peat-fuel company into its
chief peatland restorer. Dublin announced that from thestart of 2021 it would report its greenhouse gas emissions
and removals from bogs. “We are ready to support Ireland
to turn its knowledge into action, restoring its amazing
peatlands to benefit people and nature for the long term,”says our CEO Jane Madgwick.

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Such technical work is vital if countries are going tobenefit. Under UN climate rules, they can only countreductions in emissions as part of their NDCs if they havepreviously declared their sources of wetland emissions,and established baseline “business as usual” scenarios
from which to calculate reductions. Our expertise incharting a path for governments is vital.

NEW PARTNERSHIPSIN 2020
If we are to reach the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Agreement, we need to urgently safeguard and restore wetland
carbon stores. To make that happen, both public and private finance have to be mobilised at scale. Both countries andcompanies need to take responsibility by reducing emissions while also supporting Nature-based Solutions. Wetlands
International collaborates with companies to support them on their pathway to net zero through combined emission
reductions and Nature-based Solutions. In doing so, best practice on responsible corporate climate action will be
developed and shared. Such best practices can take different forms in different situations, and it will evolve as the rulesof the Paris Agreement are being shaped. In 2020, we were proud to announce the following two new partnerships withleading companies:

Boskalis
Dredging and offshore contractor Royal BoskalisWestminster N.V. (Boskalis) and Wetlands International
have worked together for several years as membersof Ecoshape, a pioneering consortium developing
Building with Nature principles for flood defence, coastal
restoration and sustainable ports. The impacts of climatechange on coastal systems and communities are becoming
ever more apparent, but healthy coastal wetlands act
as climate buffers and carbon stores. In 2020, Wetlands
International and Boskalis joined forces to develop theknowledge and expertise required to safeguard and restore
coastal wetlands to meet climate targets while benefitting
biodiversity and local communities. Together we arecommitted to share the learnings from the collaboration
with the sector as a whole.

Greenchoice
Wetlands International started working with the Dutch
sustainable energy company Greenchoice in 2020. We
are working together to accelerate and support climatechange mitigation by protecting and restoring wetlands
that yield climate, biodiversity and community benefits.
We aim to be a catalyst that leverages further climate
action by pioneering novel solutions and sharing ourknowledge and experiences. Our first joint project concerns
mangrove restoration in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. The
project in Guinea-Bissau will restore at least 2,500 ha ofmangroves, removing carbon directly from the atmosphereand making a positive contribution to the local biodiversity
and community in the process. We plan to develop
further joint projects in other types of wetlands and othercountries.

Partners
GreenchoiceBoskalis
Permian Global(exploring in 2020:
Landscape Finance Lab & Commonland)
DonorsGreenchoiceBoskalis
COmON
Dutch Postcode Lottery
Ecoshape
Boskalis COO Theo Baartmans and Wetlands International CEO
Jane Madgwick at the signing ceremony of the partnership.

The Guinea-Bissau project will create the right hydrological andsocio-economic conditionsWetlands
for mangroves
to Annual
grow backInternational
Reviewnaturally.
2020

53

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The Inner Niger Delta’s natural
flooding and related fish andagricultural production will decline
if upstream plans for the Fomi
hydropower dam in Guinea andMali’s irrigation expansion becomea reality.
The new hydrological, ecological andsocial analysis concludes that theplanned dam and irrigation works
would reduce the production of riceby 11%, fish catches by 20%, andthe elephant grass by 7%.
This would affect fish markets acrossthe region, cause livestock prices tosurge and impact nomadic herders
from Mauritania to Chad, andcould stimulate a major outflow of
migrants.

BRING ONTHE FLOOD
By Fred Pearce

Is West Africa’s biggest interior wetland, the Inner Niger Deltaon the fringes of the Sahara Desert in Mali, on the brink ofdrying up? It seemed a ludicrous suggestion as intense summer
rains coursed down the Rive Niger in October 2020, raisingwater levels in the delta to heights unseen for half a century.
But the same month a series of academic studies commissioned
by Wetlands International confirmed our fears that that isprecisely the fate that awaits this desert jewel, if neighbouring
Guinea goes ahead with the long-promised hydroelectric dam in
the river’s headwaters.
Mopti, Mali’s central region, which borders the Niger River.
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The Bamgire project concluded that drying out the wetlands ofthe Inner Niger Delta would stimulate a major outflow of
migrants and exacerbate the growing political instability in Mali.

The productivity of the Inner Niger Delta depends on theannual flood pulse during the rainy season each October.

Guinea wants the Fomi dam, which would triple existingwater storage in the upper river, to become a power hub forthe region. It could supply Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal,
Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Mali. Meanwhile,
Mali wants to use the regulated flow of water through the
dam’s turbines to irrigate a giant state-run agriculturalarea known as the Office du Niger. The plan is to triple theirrigated area to 4600 square kilometres by 2045, andgrow two crops a year for the first time.

56

But the dam and anticipated irrigation diversions would
wreck all that. “While food production will increase in
the Office du Niger, it will drop in the delta.” Projects
intended to make life better for Malians would likely makeit worse – especially for those who are already poor andmarginalised.

But the water allocation for hydropower and intensive
irrigated agriculture affects the delta, which is justdownstream of the canal that diverts water for the Office
du Niger. In the wet season, the delta swells to inundate
an area the size of Belgium. This natural food production
system feeds 40% of Mali’s cattle from wetland grasses,
and produces 80% of its fish, sustaining the livelihoodsof some three million people – fishers, recession farmers
and migrating herders who move into the still-green oasis
during the region’s long dry season.

The new hydrological, ecological and social analysis,collectively known as Bamgire project, confirms a direct
relationship between the extent of annual flooding in
the wetland and the delta’s productivity. Its modellingconcludes that the planned dam and irrigation works
would reduce the production of rice that feeds Malians andpeople in neighbouring countries by 11%, fish catches
that also supply markets across the region by 20%, andthe elephant grass, known locally as bourgou, on which
millions of livestock from across West Africa rely on fordry-season grazing by 7%, with repercussions for nomadic
herders from Mauritania to Chad. Clay for pottery and woodfor fuel would also decrease.

“The delta and its ecosystems are vital for food security
in Mali, as well as the wider region,” says Karounga Keita,
the Mali-based Sahel director of Wetlands International.

But these change in averages hides much bigger changes in
the likely frequencies of extreme drought conditions, suchas those experienced in the 1970s and 1980s, when they

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

Planned upstream dam construction and irrigation works would reduce the Inner
Niger Delta’s fish production by 20%.

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57

Waterallocation forhydropower
and intensive
irrigated
agriculture
from theriver affects
the Inner
Niger Delta,
which is justdownstream
A dam would reduce the livelihood options for millions ofpeople in the Inner Niger Delta.

caused famine and mass outmigration. The new modellingconcludes that disaster years such as that suffered in 1984,
the peak of the last drought, would occur not once every
50 years as at present, but once every ten years. This mightworsen if the West-Sahelian climate becomes drier in the
future due to climate change.
The Inner Niger Delta is a complex hydrological andecological system, whose productivity depends criticallyon the annual flood ”pulse” during the rainy season each
October. Its huge fish output, which can be 130,000
tonnes in a good year, depends on flood dynamics thatcreate spawning and nursing grounds. Similarly, thebourgou grasses on which the cattle depend require timely
floodwater to germinate and grow. Stefan Liersch of the
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research noted in
one Bamgire paper that “as a rule of thumb, the larger theinundated area the higher the productivity.”
But if the dam is operated to maximise hydroelectricity
production, then it will reduce peak discharges down theriver by 40%, which the models suggest will reduce thearea flooded by 24%. This would “severely jeopardisethe delta’s ecosystem integrity, and thus compromise its

potential yields… and reduce livelihood options for millions
of people,” concludes Liersch.
Declining productivity on the wetland would exacerbate
the growing political instability in Mali, which suffered amilitary coup in August 2020. The region around the delta
is already a cockpit of conflicts, with militant jihadists
claiming to represent Fulani herders in the delta.
And the research concludes that drying out the wetland
would probably also stimulate a major outflow of
migrants. Some fear this could add to migrant flows
from North Africa towards Europe. Interviews with morethan a thousand delta inhabitants about their livelihood
strategies concluded that the livelihoods of the inhabitants
are already on a knife-edge, and the predicted 24% lossof productivity from the delta would result in a similar
increase in people in the delta considering migration,“especially among fishermen and arable farmers”.
The prospects of the dam going ahead remained unclear
at the end of 2020. Three years before, the government
in Guinea had announced that Chinese backing was inplace and construction was ready to begin. But since then,Elephant grass, known locally as bourgou, feeds millions of livestock across West Africa.
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Declining
productivity
on thewetland would
exacerbate
the growing
political
instability in
Mali

THE WATER, PEACEAND SECURITY PARTNERSHIPWINS LUXEMBOURG PRIZE
Together with our partners, we accepted the Luxembourg Peace Prize for the Water, Peace and Security Partnership(WPS) in early 2020. This ground-breaking initiative was awarded for Outstanding Environmental Peace. It was foundedin 2018 to identify and address water-related security risks by providing data, analysing risks and proposing solutions
through capacity development and dialogue support. Data is fundamental to understanding where and how water
shortages translate into social consequences, enabling decision-makers to take early and coordinated action.

The delta and its ecosystems are vital for food security in Mali
as well as the wider region.

there has been silence, with speculation in 2020 that
Chinese banks might be getting cold feet, because of theenvironmental and livelihood concerns raised by Wetlands
International and others.

emptied of water. The result was one of the great faminesof the 20th century. The fear today is that the same pattern
may repeat itself in the coming decade – but thanks not tothe vagaries of the weather but to the short-sightedness ofhuman engineering.

Water availability can be an indicator for growing
tensions and potential conflicts, as in Niger

In theory, say the academics, releases of water fromthe dam could be tailored to ensure the wetland still
benefits from some flooding. According to modelling, an“environmental flow regime” representing 58% of natural
flow conditions, and mimicking its flood pulse might beenough. But the researchers warn that “if this is not done,
then there will be the risk of the ecosystem collapsing.”
Experience around the world where such environmental
flows from dams have been proposed, suggests thatwhen dam operators are taking decisions about whento open and close their sluice gates, the demands forhydroelectricity come first, those of irrigation second, andthose of everyone else a poor third.
The only floods in living memory in the delta to comparewith those of 2020 happened in 1969. Right after that,drought swept across West Africa, and the delta largely

Partners
Altenburg and Wymenga

WPS partnership coordinator Susanne Schmeier participatedin the award ceremony by video call.

International Water Management Institute (IWMI)
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research(PIK)
University of Ottawa
Wolfs Company

https://www.wetlands.org/news/water-peace-andsecurity-partnership-awarded-luxembourg-peaceprize-in-the-environment-category/

One of the outputs of the WPS was the Global Early Warning
Tool that uses machine learning to predict where violent
conflicts are likely to occur.

Donor
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in
Mali
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BRINGING WETLANDSTO THE FORE
“As Water Lands makes plain, wetlands are precious beyond
any utility we can quantify, beyond carbon storage or biodiversity improvement.” - Charles Einstein, Author and Speaker“Water Lands directs attention to the much-needed re-orientation between rapid economic development and long-term
prosperity.” - Ikal Ang’elei, Director, Friends of Lake Turkana

Unleashing the#PowerofWetlands
Water Lands:
A vision for theworld’s wetlands
and their people
In addition to the Covid-19 pandemic, the spotlight in2020 was set firmly on the twinned crises of climate andbiodiversity, and the choices the world must make to avoid
catastrophe. Our landmark book Water Lands, written byjournalist Fred Pearce and Wetlands International CEO
Jane Madgwick, was released on World Wetlands Day, 2
February 2020, and set out a timely call to action for oneof the world’s most overlooked ecosystems. As the first-ever fully illustrated reportage on the world’s wetlands, thebook was very well received in all regions of the world andhas served as a comprehensive source of stories to inspire
action, from the peat bogs of Ireland to the marshes of theBrazilian Pantanal.
“Water Lands is exceptional because it shines a light on
the importance of understanding how water systems haveshaped nature, cultures and economies.” - David Nabarro,
Special Advisor to the United Nations

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On World Youth Day, 12 August 2020, we launched ourongoing digital campaign #PowerofWetlands, focused on
raising public awareness of and support for wetlands as
Nature-based Solutions to climate and biodiversity action,
particularly around their inclusion in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement. Our
overarching campaign call is to make the safeguarding andrestoration of wetlands a global and national priority. We
engaged youth as a key audience in helping drive publicawareness and a “whole-of-society” response. Powerofwetlands.org in combination with social media is the bedrockof the campaign, bringing together wetland information
resources and stories of young wetland champions in one
place. The microsite provides a linkage between social media and Wetlands International’s programme activities, inalliance with partners and youth network groups.

On 19 October, Wetlands International and Youth Engagedin Wetlands co-organised a youth dialogue that brought
together 52 young wetland ambassadors, youth representatives from organisations including Global Youth Biodiversity Network, Youth Water Network, YOUNGO (the Youth
Constituency of the UNFCCC), Youth4Nature and Re-Peat.
The dialogue featured a representative from the NDC Partnership on Nature-based Solutions and a representativefrom Panama’s Climate Change Directorate (on the inclusion of wetlands in Panama’s NDCs) and Wetlands International on approaches to wetlands in climate action.

Leonard Owuor Agan, Kenya
The Marura wetlands in Kenya span an area now characterised by agriculture, block making, harvesting, fishing,
livestock rearing and irrigation. Locals derive more than
50% of their livelihood from the wetland’s resources. “Wehope to inform and inspire people to get the products fromthe wetland in a way that it can be continuous without total
destruction. Many people are not aware of the power ofwetlands and how their lives are linked to the health stateof it. This is what we hope to change,” says Leonard.

In the run up to the conferences of UNFCCC (climate)
COP26 and the Convention on Biological Diversity (post2020 biodiversity framework) COP15, we will use the campaign microsite as an advocacy tool and will ramp up thecall for signatures and support via our Open Letter.

Meet our Wetland
ChampionsMaría Elisa Sánchez, Canada
Born in the second highest capital city in the world, Quito,
María has been studying how mountain peatlands, such as
the Helen Lake peatland in Banff National Park in Canada,
are affected by a shift in winter precipitation due to climatechange for the past two years. “They are natural ‘water towers’ because of their ability to collect water and release it
slowly through time, but they are disproportionately affected by climate change,” says María.

Tanvi Hussain, India
Getting the balance right is a major challenge for the Indian village of Hatimuria, which relies on a wetland called
Bherbheri Beel in the state of Assam. Tanvi Hussain, a PhD
student and scientist from the region, works on natural resource conservation with the communities who live aroundthis wetland. “Conservation in a rural context means creating livelihood opportunities for the poor while in urban
areas it is about convincing people to be more sensible
about their lifestyle,” says Tanvi.

To read more wetlands stories, head to Powerofwetlands.org

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63

FROM THE
SUPERVISORY COUNCIL

Wetlands
International
Supervisory
CouncilAndré van der Zande, Chair

Undoubtedly 2020 was a year of great concern and hampered
connections for most of us. Gladly, we welcomed new members
Ulrike Sapiro and Adrie Papma to the Supervisory Council and
Board of the Association, bringing experience and networks
from the private sector and development sector, respectively.
The fact that the Supervisory Council and Board of the
Association normally only meets twice a year is usually not
a problem because we combine the second meeting withfield visits, staff contacts and stakeholder meet-and-greet.
Digital interaction helped us to overcome the Covid-19
travel restrictions, but as we all felt, it has its limitations.
We were also concerned about the impact of Covid-19
on the health of our staff and on our work in the field; weare proud to say that Wetlands International’s leadershipreassured us with information about adapted programmes
and a thorough and alert response to the pandemic, using
updated risk analysis mapping as a tool, among others.
In our November 2020 meeting, the outlook for financial
challenges in 2021 was discussed, which was subsequently
overcome by project adaptations, a successful fundraisingstrategy and cost reductions. We received monthly reports
from the Management Team and held extra meetings tomonitor progress in the beginning of 2021. The relatively
new Supervisory Council and Board of the Association
quickly engaged to understand the operational challengesof the organisation, as well as the emerging opportunities
being developed to enable wetland recovery worldwide.

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André van der Zande
Chair

Kathy MacKinnon
Vice-Chair

Eliot Taylor
MemberUlrike Sapiro
Member(until March 2021)

Hastings Chikoko
MemberHazuaki Hoshino
MemberMaggie White
MemberAdrie (A.N.) Papma
MemberCarlos Saavedra
MemberAngelique van de Beeten
Member (Treasurer)

We were delighted to hear the news that the COmON
Foundation and the Dutch Postcode Lottery decided toback the organisation, with financial support in 2021
for institutional development and to mobilise strategic
alliances for the recovery of mangroves, freshwaters andpeatlands.
The really good news of 2020 was that Wetlands
International managed to finalise the new Strategic Intent
2020-2030 through a very challenging and inclusive
working process. Most of our Council members were able
to participate in one or two webinars with our Regional
Directors, members, partners and staff, complete withbreak-out sessions. This new Strategic Intent aims to
upscale our proven wetland solutions and the efforts ofothers. We believe that this is necessary, considering the
global state of wetlands, and having seen results fromsuccessful projects and programmes in the field. Let us
hope that the post-Covid-19 years to come will be a great
window of opportunity, with the enhanced awareness ofthe public and politicians for the importance of our natural
heritage and natural resources.

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65

StaffprofileStaff
profileWhat is the nicest thing about working at Wetlands
International?
Through Wetlands International I have been able to findan answer to the fundamental question of what I want to
do for wetland conservation and restoration. It took a longtime to find out, but I think the best thing is that I now
have global values that I would not have found within theindustry of just my country.

teamwork for advising a technically robust legislative text
was definitely one of the main highlights of 2020.

Gastón Fulquet
Regional Programme
Coordinator
Office: Argentina

Who is Gastón Fulquet?
I am the Regional Coordinator of the Corredor Azul
Programme, a long-term programme that aims to safeguard
the health and connectivity of the Paraná-Paraguay river
system and its iconic wetlands – the Iberá Marshes and theParaná Delta in Argentina, and the Pantanal in Brazil. Before
joining Wetlands International, I worked at the National
Ministry of the Environment of Argentina as an advisor forinternational waters and integrated water management.
I also hold a PhD in Social Sciences by FLACSO where I
specialised in political ecology and international political
economy.
What was your biggest personal work achievement in
2020?
2020 was a year full of personal and professional
challenges in the context of Covid–19. We also
experienced the driest period in over 60 years, with fires
all along the Paraná-Paraguay wetland corridor. Withinthat frame, one of my biggest work achievements was
keeping the programme running and the team motivated tocontinue finding creative ways to get our message across.
We learned new ways of working together at a distance,but still brought significant outputs, clear messages, andpractical solutions in moments of enormous uncertainty.
We went beyond expectations even within this “newnormal”.

What is the nicest thing about working at Wetlands
International?
I feel proud to be part of an organisation willing to build
examples and develop evidence of how things can be done
differently. I believe that real transformations begin by
exercising dialogue with all actors in society who perceive
the need for a change of paradigm and are ready toconstruct a new path, taking the best of what others haveto offer. Wetlands International has that vision and puts a
lot of energy, time, knowledge and experience into building
bridges with others in hopes of more integrated solutions
for the good of nature and society.
What do you want to achieve in 2021?
In 2021 I want to engage our Programme team incontributing actively to the discussions around wetlands
and climate change. While changes in rainfall regimes
across South America partially explain the intense fires
experienced last year, the drought also made visible
what can happen when wetlands are not able to performtheir functions and provide essential services such as fire
regulation and carbon sequestration. In that direction,
we have been working for wetlands to be considered as
fundamental ecosystems for climate change adaptationin Argentina’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)
to the UNFCCC. We are aiming for a seat on the Advisory
Board of the National Climate Change Inter-Ministerial
Cabinet this year.
What is your favourite species and why?
One of my favourite species is the Tuyuyú, also known
as Jabiru (Mycteria americana). This bird species isrepresentative of our call to keep the Paraná-Paraguay
Corridor connected and ecologically functional. In the
search for the best habitat, the Tuyuyú flies over the morethan 3,400 km separating the Pantanal from the Paraná
Delta, considering the flood regimes of each of thesemacro-wetlands.

Ken-Ichi Yokoi
Director
Office: Japan

Who is Ken-ichi Yokoi?
I joined Wetlands International in 2010, where I worked in
the Japan office as a researcher until 2015 and now as the
Director since 2016. Before joining Wetlands International,
I was a fish researcher, carrying out research on the life
history, reproductive ecology, and genetic structure ofendangered freshwater fish that are endemic to the
UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Ogasawara Islandsin the Pacific Ocean. Later, I was involved in researching
and improving aquaculture techniques for bluefin tuna,eel, and sweet smelt, amongst other species. At Wetlands
International, I became involved in the survey of a broader
range of wetland species, including plants and algae. I
have loved dolphins since I was a child and dreamed ofswimming with wild dolphins and whales. As a university
student, I will never forget my excitement upon seeinga sperm whale for the first time, and I treasure my youth
spent on a tropical island in everlasting summer. Thatexperience was the starting point for what I am doing now.

What do you want to achieve in 2021?
In contrast to the population growth in much of the world,
population decline and demographic change pose newproblems for Japan. I believe that the declining birth rate
and ageing population will affect social security systems
and people’s lives, on top of the serious effects of theCovid-19 pandemic. Still, nature conservation must not
become an idealism, and I believe that healthy wetlands
need to be part of the social security system. It’s essential
to think of a scenario where improving the environment
will improve people’s lives, revitalise communities andsocial activities synergistically. I want to take a step
towards these challenges when putting our plans into
action for 2021.
What is your favourite species and why?
A long time ago, I would have always mentioned the tiny
goby Rhinogobius ogasawaraensis, which was the subjectof my first research. Nowadays, just going to a wetland is
exciting, and anything new is fascinating.

What was your biggest personal work achievement in
2020?
The most significant achievement of 2020 was to set out
a medium-term roadmap for the Japan office, including
the direction of our office and what it should do, based on
Strategic Intent 2020-2030.

This collective effort, between our technical and advocacy
staff, resulted in the inclusion of a National Wetlands
Conservation Bill discussion in the Argentinian Parliament
towards the end of 2020. Although there is still a lot ofwork to do in the path towards getting the bill passed, our66

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Wetlands International Annual Review 202067

Wetlands
International
Offices

6
4
5
20

17

14
7

1

8

1. Latin America & Caribbean Panama
2. Brazil
3. Latin American & Caribbean Argentina
4. Global oﬃce

2

5. Europe

9

18
10

15 16

12

19

11
13

6. Russia
7. West Africa Coastal
8. Guinea-Bissau
9. Sahel3

10. Ethiopia
11. Uganda
12. Eastern Africa
13. Tanzania
14. South Asia
15. Malaysia
16. Brunei
17. China
18. Philippines
19. Indonesia
20. Japan
68

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69

FUNCTIONING OF
THE ORGANISATION

Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic affected people in every country in2020 due to its health impact and the restrictions necessary
to control its spread. Everyone had to change how they
worked substantially, with many seeing major financial
difficulties as they tried to adapt.
Wetlands International was no exception and faced achallenging situation in all of our offices. Impacts werefelt directly by our staff, from illness, quarantine and worry
about family, friends and future employment, to personal
isolation caused by our offices being closed for much of theyear. Project implementation suffered delays which required
extensive re-planning and re-negotiation with donors,
and we had to accelerate the use of IT systems to work
effectively and securely virtually.
It was a struggle for everyone, but our staff showed
enormous resilience, equally matched by the understanding
and flexibility shown by our programme donors. In many
countries our teams also took care to help wetlandcommunities and our local partners adapt to the constraints
imposed by the pandemic. See the examples pages 22-28
Strategic Intent
Wetlands International’s Strategic Intent (2020-2030) wasapproved by the organisation’s governance in November
and the General Members Meeting in December 2020. An
introduction to the Strategic Intent is provided on pages
10-11 and can be downloaded in full here. This sets out
ambitious goals across three streams of work and provides
a framework for the global organisation within which multiyear regional and office specific strategies and annual actionplans are developed and implemented.

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

Virtual annual
meeting of the
Heads of Office

Achievements
Results that contribute to the goals set out in the Strategic
Intent are delivered collaboratively by our office teams
through programmes and projects, in line with the local
context in which they operate. A summary of achievements
is provided on pages 12-19. A list of main projects carriedout in 2020 is provided in pages 50-53 of the Annex.
Wetlands International network
Wetlands International is an independent global networkof offices with shared values, brand and purpose that
implement a joint strategy to safeguard and restore
wetlands in more than 100 countries worldwide. Our offices
and locations are shown on page 68.
Global Office
The Global Office, based in the Netherlands, serves theentire network in a representation, communications,
technical support and fundraising capacity. The office is
responsible for keeping the daily work of the networkaligned with decisions taken by the network management
team and global board. A brief social report for the Global
Office in 2020 is presented on pages 76-77.
Communications and advocacy
Policy positions and our brand strategy ensure that we
speak with one voice across the whole network organisationand guide our external communications and brand use. This
work is supported by a dedicated team based at the Global
Office. In 2020, the #PowerOfWetlands campaign was
launched with the objective of mobilising support to makehealthy wetlands a national and global priority to help heal
the climate and restore biodiversity (see page 62).

Wetlands International Annual Review 202071

Network
Organisation
Chart

GOVERNANCE

GovernanceWetlands International is a non-profit organisation withcharitable status (CBF) in the Netherlands and in mostcountries where it operates. The organisation has twocomplementary forms of international governance: anassociation of members (governments and NGOs), anda foundation overseen by a Supervisory Council whose
members also constitute the Board of the Association. The
2020 Supervisory Council report is presented on pages
64-65. In cases where offices have an independent legal
status, they are governed by national or sub-regionalboards, of which the network CEO is an ex-officio member.
Network management
The global board, consisting of the Wetlands International
CEO and heads of each office, is responsible for strategic
decisions on positioning, programme priorities andinstitutional issues. The global board delegates operational
decision-making to the Network Management Team chairedby the CEO, with members drawn from among heads ofoffice and global functions. The global management teamfacilitate the work of the foundation globally. In 2020,
the Network Management Team met every two months
and helped steer the organisation through the challenges
presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. The global board
met in October and focused on the implementation of theStrategic Intent and priority setting for 2021.
Accountability
Transparency and accountability towards our stakeholders
are part of our core values, including actively seeking
feedback on our performance. A dedicated section of our72

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

National /Sub-Regional
BoardsSupervisory
Council &Board of Association

Membersof theAssociation

website provides our annual reports and annual accounts,
and information about key global policies includingConservation and Human Rights Framework, INGO
Accountability Framework, Code of Conduct, Corporate
Engagement, Anti-corruption, Ethical, Gender, andPartnership.
Anti-corruption and whistle blowing
All staff are introduced to the anti-corruption policy in theirinduction and are encouraged to be vigilant and discuss
any suspicions with their line manager or head of office.
Stakeholders can approach Wetlands International with
their grievances or complaints related to possible casesof fraud or mis-management. The complaints procedure
is available on the Wetlands International website. In
2020 there were no cases of fraud or corruption and nocomplaints received.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Wetlands International strives to act in its daily operations
in a sustainable and socially responsible way. In the
Global Office in the Netherlands, we actively encourage
our employees to use public transport and all flights
booked are compensated for their CO2 emissions (21tonnes in 2020). This represents a 95% reduction in
relation to 2019 due to the impact of the global pandemic.
Commuting to work and domestic travel were also reduced
dramatically as staff worked from home for a large part of
the year and online meetings became the standard way ofworking internally and externally.

NetworkCEO
NETWORKEXECUTIVE
MANAGEMENT

Global Oﬃce
Management
Team

Global Board(of Heads of Office)Network
ManagementTeam

PROGRAMMEDEVELOPMENT &IMPLEMENTATION

NetworkOﬃces

Global Oﬃce
(services Network &Offices)

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

73

Risk
Management
A risk register is updated at every reporting cycle, including mitigating measures, and discussed with the Wetlands International Supervisory Council. It is not surprising that dealing with the immediate and lasting effects of Covid-19 was ranked
as the highest risk at the end of 2020. The top five risks as rated in December 2020 are specified in the table below:

10

36

1.

2,

3.

4,

5.

Risk

Area of risk

Potential Impact on organisation

Mitigation measures

Impact of
Covid-19 reduces
fundraising andslows project
implementation

Operational

Reduced income from new
programmes in 2021 and beyond.
Slower implementation increases
costs unless deliverables areadjusted.

Close contact with donors.
Renegotiation and replanning ofagreements. Proposals for additional
Covid-19 adaptation support.

Insufficient
resources toimplement
the Strategic
Intent and coverorganisationalcosts

Financial

Without a strong pipeline of newprospects and project proposals,
it will be harder to create thepositive impact needed forwetlands and the communities
who depend on them, and tomaintain core staff.

Management Team, Heads of Offices
and Programme Heads have timereserved to identify and develop
opportunities. In the Global Office
we have recruited a Resource
Development Manager to help
structure our approaches better.

Subcontracts
and reporting are
not of sufficientquality

Financial

Cost over-runs, disallowed
expenditures (non-compliant
with donor conditions) andinsufficient delivery of results.

Regular and systematic monitoring
and use of lessons learned to
improve programme set-up.

Political instability
and conflict

Governance

Need to stop or substantiallychange implementation due
to insecurity or change ingovernment support.

Maintain close contacts with Heads
of Office, diplomatic networks anddonors; strengthen cooperation
with local communities; incorporate
flexibility in project.

Less opportunity to develop andimplement new programmeswith impact on income and staff
budgets.

Regular review of situation with
Network Management Team; sharpen
propositions; give more attention todonor relationship management andfundraising.

Economicrecession in
multiple regions
leads to less funds
available andmore competition

Financial

European
Association
Members(global)
Association
Members

Associated experts,
members andvolunteers
10,000+Volunteer
CitizenScientists

10

251

Supervisory
CouncilPartners

31

6

Associate
Experts

Counsellors of
Honour16

Specialist
GroupsIncreasing our reach
The strength of Wetlands International is more than the
total of its staff and offices. Through working with influential
partners, specialist groups, experts and members, we
accelerate our momentum and strategic results.
Members and the Supervisory Council provide active
governance and, together with Counsellors of Honour, bringhigh-level expertise, guidance and connections. Specialist
groups, associate experts and partners provide expertise,evidence and advice that underpins our approach on science,
policy and practice. Partner organisations with whom wework regularly to implement programmes and projects arelisted on pages 69 onwards. We are especially proud of ourlong-standing engagement with volunteer and citizen sciencegroups, such as those who participate in the International
Waterbird Census each year.

to adopt the Strategic Intent (2020-2030), approve two newmembers of the Board of Association, endorse changes to
the Articles of Association, and take note of the 2020 financereport (forecast) and the 2021 budget for the Association. Our
European Association has 10 NGO members that jointly steer
our programme action across the region.
Strategic partnerships
Wetlands International works within many varied partnerships
in nearly all of the work it undertakes. Our partnership policy
lays down principles that guide why and how long-term
strategic relationships are developed and managed. In 2020,
we signed new strategic partnerships with Boskalis, a leading
global dredging and offshore contractor and maritime services
provider, and with Greenchoice, a Dutch sustainable energy
company that is leading in making possible a decentralised
energy transition. Boskalis and Greenchoice are introduced on
page 53.

Members
Government and NGO members of the (global) association
provide long-term support and strategic guidance to theorganisation. In December 2020, members passed resolutions
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Wetlands International Annual Review 202075

Spotlight:
Global OfficeSocial Report
2020

Wetlands International is proud of its professional andmotivated staff. This section provides insight into ourglobal office staff and human resource practices in 2020.
Covid-19
The global pandemic changed many aspects of our working
practices in 2020. We created a Corona team that oversaw
our policies and practices to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our staff while endeavouring to deliver the best
results possible for our mission. Working from home was
the norm for our team in 2020 with no travel outside theNetherlands for more than nine months of the year. Our
staff have adapted amazingly well and have shown anamazing resilience under difficult circumstances.
Diversity
In December 2020, the number of global office staff
was 39. Our staff has a diverse cultural and professional
background which matches our role as an international
NGO. During the year we had staff with 11 different
nationalities, with an average age of 45 years and abalanced male/female ratio of 42/58%. More than 75%
of our staff have university degrees and those with PhD’s
increased from 4 to 6.
Employment contracts
The average number of working hours per week during
the year was 33 (fulltime is 36 hours). During 2020 we
employed 9 new staff members and 10 staff members left.
We have adjusted our way of working with staff contracts
in order to maintain some flexibility in our staffing andfollowing changes to Dutch employment law. This meansthat we now offer a permanent contract after a period of 36
months on a fixed term contract.

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

GlobalOfficeStaff

Induction at a distanceWorking from home since March 2020 is not only achallenge for existing staff, but it is also difficult for new
staff. We notice that it takes more time and energy for
new staff to become familiar with the organisation incircumstances where they only meet their new colleagues
online. Staff in line management positions have had to takeon additional work in this respect.
HealthDespite the impact of Covid-19 and the difficulty ofworking online from home for an extended period of time,
we are fortunate to have maintained a low level of sickleave (< 1%). Working from home meant that staff had alower risk of infection in public transport or at the office.
We have provided staff with additional equipment (screens,chairs, keyboards, etc.) to enable them to work safely. In
2020, we had only one case of a staff member with longterm illness.
Integrity
Integrity and personal safety are top priorities for ourorganisation and we consider it important to be transparent
about this. We have procedures on our website andintranet that enable external and internal complaints to
be dealt with confidentially and without consequences
for the person raising the issue. In 2020, no external
complaints were received and there was no recourse bystaff to the independent counsellor who is external to theorganisation.

42%

58%

11 NATIONALITIESAVERAGE AGE: 45

STAFF NUMBERS

CONTRACT TYPE

total: 39
fte: 36.2
part-time: 13
full-time: 26

permanent: 22
ﬁxed time: 14
project: 3

HEALTHHIGHEST LEVELEDUCATION
PhD: 6master: 24
bachelor: 7other: 2

short-term
sick leave <1%

INTEGRITY
PROCEDURES
internal: 0
external: 0

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

77

StaffprofileSimon Akwetaireho
Project Officer
Office: Uganda

Who is Simon Akwetaireho?
I was born in Hoima District close to Budongo Central
Forest Reserve, the largest tropical high forest in Uganda.
Lumbering was lucrative then and we revered andrespected those involved in the trade. This endeared me to
study forestry at Makerere University. I later discovered that
forests have immense socio-economic and environmental
benefits besides timber. I had a seven-year community
conservation stint at four wildlife national parks before
moving to work on projects in the northern Albertine Riftforest and Lake Victoria. At Wetlands International, I am
the Technical Officer working on a three-year project on
Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (EcoDRR) in Aswa
River Catchment. I have a MSc. degree in Protected Area
Management from the University of Klagenfurt, Austria; a
PGD in Endangered Species Management from Universityof Kent at Canterbury, UK; and a BSc in Forestry from
Makerere University, Uganda.
What was your biggest personal work achievement in
2020?
This would be supporting and empowering 33 farmers
through our bio-rights approach in developing viable,market-oriented and profitable small-scale honey value
chains. Commercial beekeeping is one of the ventures
expected to increase household incomes and foodsecurity in addition to conserving the dwindling wetlands
associated with Upper Agago sub-catchment in Abim
District.

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

What is the nicest thing about working at Wetlands
International?
It’s the open-door policy, inclusive and non-bureaucraticorganisation which encourages quick decision making,open communication, mutual respect among staff andfeedback on matters requiring urgent attention. This
offers learning opportunities in the form of knowledge,
best practices and experience exchange that comes withworking across sectors, and in multi-disciplinary teams at
all levels as well as North-South collaboration.
We are also empowered to be fully in charge of all
aspects project-wise; hence taking credit and recognition
for, and ownership of the achievements made toward
organisational mission and vision.
What do you want to achieve in 2021?
In 2021, my eyes and energies will be on increasing thevisibility and publicity of Wetlands International in the
project area through promoting an Information, Education
and Communication campaign. As the EcoDRR projectends in December, my target is to support the project’s
beneficiaries prepare sustainability plans as an exit
strategy.
What is your favourite species and why?
My favourite species is the shoebill stork, a rare bird
surviving in the wetlands fringing Lake Victoria in the in the
Kampala metropole. These wetlands are under immensepressure, and the shoebill stork, a charismatic and iconic
species, attracts technical and financial support from theprivate sector and NGOs that are invested in the protection
and sustenance of the critical wetland ecosystems.

Staff
profileWhat is the nicest thing about working at Wetlands
International?
It’s not just that I truly believe in the mission and values ofWetlands International – the nicest thing about working at
Wetlands International is how inspired I feel to work withcommitted and engaged colleagues towards a common
goal.

Teresa Zuna
Project Manager
Office: European
Association

Who is Teresa Zuna?
I am Portuguese but have lived in The Netherlands
since 2012 when I began as a volunteer at Wetlands
International by supporting the Ramsar Information
System. I hold a Geography degree and a Master’s degreein Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Land
Modelling. At Wetlands International I’ve had different
positions over the years, but since March 2021 I haveworked as the Project Manager for a partnership focusedon strengthening integrated river management in the
Mediterranean Region.

What do you want to achieve in 2021?
My goal for 2021 is to strengthen the partnership linked tointegrated river management that I am facilitating throughWetlands International Europe. Bringing partners together
and enabling them to achieve their goals, building theirresilience towards the future, and helping them secure newfunding.
What is your favourite species and why?
My favourite species is the hawksbill sea turtle. I always
found sea turtles to be amazing, but it was only when I
participated in a volunteer programme in Nusa Penida,Indonesia that I fell in love with them. One of my favourite
hobbies is scuba diving and I encountered hawksbill turtles
several times in my dives; watching them gracefully glide
over the coral reefs is an unforgettable experience.

What was your biggest personal work achievement in
2020?
In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic posed unprecedented
challenges and we had to be more flexible and adaptive
than ever. I feel my biggest achievement in 2020 was
a team effort, with Lammert Hilarides, Ildiko Nagy,
Maria Stolk, Gulnar Bayramova, Nazakat Azimli, Marij
Kleinschiphorst, Willemijn Podt, Joost van Dantzig and Ron
van Leeuwen, when we started the implementation of the
new financial and IT system that was launched in January
2021. This system is a great improvement, with increased
information sharing between the different teams.

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79

SUMMARY OF
FINANCE AND RESOURCING

Our sources of income and expenditures across the threestreams
Across our three streams, Rivers and Lakes accounted
for the largest portion of our income at 55%, Coasts andDeltas at 34% and Peatlands contributing 8% of total
network income.

Increased resource development by network offices
In 2020, network offices received and managed 34% of
the total income directly from our donors. This is slightly
lower than in 2019 (42%). This decrease was mainly due todelays of project activities during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Projects that are managed through the global office aremostly implemented by our network offices or by affiliatedscientific institutions, partners and experts using subcontracts.

This section provides a summary of Wetlands International’s finance and resourcing in 2020.
A detailed version can be found in section 1 and 2 (annual accounts) and section 3 of the Annex.
Wetlands International focusses its work where wetlands matter most to both people and nature. Our programmes andinitiatives are developed to meet our strategic goals which are set out in our strategic intent and are organised into
three streams: Coasts and Deltas, Rivers and Lakes, and Peatlands (see section 3.1 of the Annex for a list of projects).

TOTAL PROJEC T IN CO ME N ETWO R K AN D GLO B AL O F F IC E (F O U N DAT I ON)
18

Our programmes are increasingly large-scale and long-term, involving transboundary and international workthat involves several offices. The network’s offices (global and sub-regional, national) work together on resource
development and an increasing amount of funding is raised by offices other than the global office.

16
14
12

Sources
Sourcesof Incomeof IncomeGlobalGlobalNetwork
Network

Sources
Sourcesof Incomeof IncomeGlobalGlobalNetwork
Network

3% 3%
8% 8%

3% 3%

34%34%

32%32%Per Per
Donor
Donor

Per PerStreamStreamCoasts& Deltas
Coasts& Deltas

Corporate
Corporate
Government
Government
57%57%

80

Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

55%55%
9% 9%Peatlands
Peatlands

Trusts,Trusts,Foundations
Foundations& Non-Proﬁts& Non-Proﬁts

Rivers& Lakes
Rivers& Lakes

Membershipcontributions
Membershipcontributions

OtherOther

6
4
2

Proj e c t In come Glob a l O ﬃ ce

Considerations looking ahead
We continue to navigate our way through the Covid-19
pandemic. Many of our projects have suffered delays on
the ground due to the pandemic. We are pleased that
there has been understanding and flexibility shown by ourdonors to adapt activities not only during 2020 but also
in 2021. Our local and global teams have adapted to thissituation swiftly and creatively.
We took measures in 2020 to reduce organisationalcosts as part of our adaptation to the pandemic and thecompletion of several large, long-term programmes. In
2021, we plan to invest in raising wetlands higher on the
global agenda and to improve our network’s institutional
capacity and financial resilience. This is possible thanks
to two major grants received in 2021 from the Dutch
National Postcode Lottery and the COmON Foundation.
New partnerships forged in 2020 are starting to accelerate
our work on wetland carbon in mangroves and peatland
landscapes.

2020

2019

2018

FORECAST 2021

Proj e c t In come N e t wor k

2017

2016

2015

0
2014

Our sources of income and expenditures across thesectors
The major source of income from projects of Wetlands
International in 2020 was from government grants,
totalling 57%. In 2020, corporate funding (through ourCollaboration Agreements) was 8% and 32% camefrom Trusts, Foundations and Non-Profits. Membershipcontributions are 3% of the total income. A full list of
network projects can be found in section 3.1 of the Annex.
This list provides an overview of projects implemented
in 2020 per office and includes the stream, the amountfunded, the donor and the donor type.

8

2013

Resourcing the global organisation
The main sources of income of Wetlands Internationalfor 2020 came from projects as well as important annual
contributions from our members. The total network project
income is based on data obtained from all offices according
to their national finance practices. The total network
project income of 2020 amounted to €12,7 million (seeAnnex section 3.1).

M I L L I O N E U RO

10

Operational improvements already include a new financesystem launched in January that will increase our efficiency
and further strengthen our financial management standards.
In addition, there is a plan to develop a fundraising teamacross the offices, to strengthen communications and our
influence and to improve knowledge management andlearning.
By working in strategic alliances towards our big ambitions,
we have been able to achieve strong results by combining
efforts with key partners on fundraising. However, we
continue to be dependent on project funding, andtherefore are vulnerable to shifts in donor priorities andincreasingly competitive calls for proposals. Our priority
is to secure long-term and multi-region programme
development.
We also continue our efforts to enhance our base of
members and supporters, and plan to explore mechanisms
which will improve the financial resilience of the Wetlands
International network as a whole.
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81

Question
to ourSupervisory
Council
In 2021, the Ramsar
Convention on Wetlands
celebrates its 50th
anniversary. What is
the key role Wetlands
International has playedin the past 50 year of theRamsar Convention andhow can we collaborate
more effectively with theparties over the next 50
years?

82

André van der Zande
Chair, Supervisory Council

Ulrike Sapiro
Member, Supervisory Council(until March 2021)“From the start of the Convention in 1971, Wetlands
International has been indispensable to getting theConvention operational and on track. Providing reliabledata and information on waterbirds and migratory
birds was a starter motor for “discovering” new listablesites and also signalling threats for already listed sites(Montreux list). Wetlands International’s greatest gift to theConvention was showing how wise use of wetlands works
on the ground. Scaling up these wetland solutions withnew partners is our challenge for the years to come.”

Lake Loktak in Manipur, India – known as the ‘mirror of Manipur’ – is under threat by a large concrete barrage built downstream
andis oneof the wetlands
listed2020
in Ramsar’s Montreux Record.
Wetlands
International
Annual Review

Name an inspiring
example of how business
contributes thoughwetland management tomeet the 2030 global
goals.

“Freshwater availability and quality are increasingly
material risks for businesses. The Coca-Cola Company
is partnering with many expert organisations to protect
local ecosystems like wetlands, grasslands, peatlands
and forests worldwide. One example is our cooperation
with Wetlands International and others to restore the
Guanacache Wetlands in Argentina, as well as our
support to improve the management of other wetlands ofinternational importance like the Llancanelo lagoon.”

After nine years of rigorous community effort, 1,000 hectares of Guanacache’s wetlands are on a path towards restoration.
Wetlands International Annual Review 202083

Question
to ourMembers
In 2021, the Ramsar
Convention on Wetlands
celebrates its 50th
anniversary. What is
the key role Wetlands
International has playedin the past 50 year of theRamsar Convention andhow can we collaborate
more effectively with theparties over the next 50
years?

Black-faced spoonbills wading in the coastal wetlands of Japan.
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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

Ms. Tomoko Ichikawa
Ministry of the Environment
Japan

Mr. Jan-Petter
Hubert-Hansen
Norwegian Environment
Agency - Norway

Wetlands International has led the Asian Waterbird
Census and the Waterbird Population Estimates that are
indispensable for the conservation of migratory waterbirds
and their habitats, providing crucial scientific data that can
prove the importance of many wetlands that meet Ramsar
criteria. We trust that Wetlands International continues totake the lead in wetland conservation by involving more
stakeholders in many countries.

Through the years, Wetlands International has done anadmirable job putting crucial wetland issues on the agenda.
In light of the importance of wetlands for biodiversity andclimate change, Wetlands International’s efforts need to be
increased and strengthened. For the coming years, I believethat a very good basis for more fruitful, efficient andstrengthened collaboration with the Parties of the Ramsar
Convention and the Members of Wetland International
is in place already, namely the Wetlands International’s
Strategic Intent 2020-2030, Scaling up the Power ofWetlands.

I’ve always seen Wetlands International as a kind of
supplement to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, butwith a less formal and more flexible approach, making
it easier to realise certain projects on the ground.
More countries need to become members of Wetlands
International, which could make it easier to cooperateregionally on selected wetland topics under a Wetlands
International umbrella, while also meeting the obligationsof the Ramsar Convention. Norway therefore strongly
urges other countries to become Wetlands International
members!

Norway has a wide variety of wetland types, and designated Ramsar sites such as the inland delta of Nordre Øyeren.
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THANK YOU
The achievements and progress made towards our 2030 targets, as set out in theStrategic Intent 2020-2030 and documented in this annual review, would not havebeen possible without our greatest resources: our teams across the network ofoffices, our worldwide network of volunteer International Waterbird Census (IWC)
observers and the support of our donors, members and partners.

Harvesting from the mangroves in Demak, Indonesia.

Our members and partners helped us to shape ourStrategic Intent 2020-2030 and their annual membershipcontributions help us implement it. Our members, bothgovernments and NGOs, also provide additional financial
support and collaborate in programmes and on policy
advocacy.
In 2020, we worked intensively with existing partners andplatforms to drive wetland solutions across sectors andscales, from knowledge institutions to the private sector.
We would like to thank all of our partners and welcome
our new company partners, Boskalis and Greenchoice (seepage 53).
We increase our reach by working with platforms and incross-sectoral partnerships, including the award-winning
Water, Peace and Security Partnership (see page 61),
Partners for Resilience, Watershed, Ecoshape (see page30), the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP), and Global
Peatland Initiative.

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020

The International Waterbird Census, one of the longest
running and largest citizen science programme in the world
can only bring together counts of millions of waterbirds
through the investment of many hours of fieldwork by tensof thousands of volunteers. A big thank you to them.
Below, we would like to give special thanks to a few ofour donors who were critical for Wetlands International’s
impact in 2020:• The European Commission for supporting the Eco-DRR
programme and the LIFE Operating Grant for our Wetlands
International – European Association.
• The International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German
Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation
and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Netherlands Enterprise
Agency (RVO) for their support to the Building with NatureIndonesia programme, the Accelerating Adaptation throughBuilding with Nature in Asia upscaling initiative, as well as
the Climate Resilient Flyways projects.

• The Dutch Postcode Lottery for their major grant which
provided seed finance that enabled us to add value andscale up our programmes. For the brief report on their
3-year grant, see page 20.
• To private trusts and foundations, including DOB
Ecology for supporting major programmes in Africa andSouth America, the MAVA Foundation for funding ourprogramme in the Mediterranean region, and the Arcadia
Charitable Fund for supporting our project in the Yellow
Sea.

for funding our work in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa andelsewhere on the African continent.
• Many of the ministries of environment or development
agencies, state and local governments from countries, suchas of Japan, India, Malaysia, Switzerland, Germany, theNetherlands, Canada and Panamá, and all government andNGO members who together enable us to coordinate theInternational Waterbird Census.
A big thank you, also to all the other donors listed on page
75 onwards of the Annex.

• To all the donors of the Global Mangrove Allianceand especially of the Global Mangrove Watch: The Oak
Foundation, the COmON Foundation and The National
Philanthropic Trust, see page 38.
• The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in
Mali, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), the Swiss
Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and others

Wetlands International Annual Review 202087Colophon

Copyright.
© 2021 Wetlands International
Published by Wetlands International
P.O. Box 471
6700 AL Wageningen
The Netherlands
Design and layout.
Gertie Vos - Poppyonto

Photo Credits.
Cover: Suprabhat, Shutterstock.com
Back: Joshua Sortino, Unsplash
2.

David Doubilet National Geographic
Collection from the book Water Lands,
Harper Collins, 2020.
5. bottom right. Rod Waddington, Flickr
7. Andre Maceira/Shutterstock.com
8. bottom left. Wetlands International Brazil
8. bottom right. Dushyant Mohil, Wetlands
International South Asia
9. bottom left. Ethiopia Wildlife Conservation
Authority
9. bottom right. Jan van de Kam
14. Unsplash
16. Wolfgang Hasselmann, Unsplash
18. Maksim Shutov, Unsplash
20. Susan Lamoureux, Unsplash
22. Elizabeth Wamba, Wetlands International
East Africa
24. Wetlands International South Asia
25. top right. Wetlands International South Asia
25. bottom right. Pieter van Eijk, Wetlands

88International
26. Yus Noor, Wetlands International Indonesia
27. YuriAbas/Shutterstock.com
28. Wetlands International Brazil
30. Boskalis
32. Yus Noor, Wetlands International Indonesia
33. top right. Yus Noor, Wetlands International
Indonesia
33. bottom right. Yus Noor, Wetlands
International Indonesia
34. Eko Budi Priyanto, Wetlands International
Indonesia
35. Yus Noor, Wetlands International Indonesia
36. Yus Noor, Wetlands International Indonesia
37. top right. R Keus
37. bottom. ONE Architecture & Urbanism
38. Sentinel Hub, Global Mangrove Watch
40. Menno de Boer, Wetlands International
41. top right. Blue Forests,
41. bottom right. Abdoulaye Ndiaye
42. Damsea/Shutterstock.com
43. Sander Carpay, Wetlands International
44. Global Mangrove Watch
45. bottom right. Geoff Brooks, Unsplash

Student members from four villages in the Saloum Delta (Mbam, Foundiougne, Sokone and Dassilamé) in Senegal,
Africa,their teachers
participatedin an initiation session to counting waterbirds, alongside the international countWetlandsandInternational
Annual Review
2020organised on 15 January 2020.

46. Wetlands International
48. Astrid Van Wesenbeeck, Flickr
49. top right. Shutterstock.com
49. bottom right. Wetlands International
50. Yayasan Elang
51. Wetlands International Indonesia
52. Steve Allen/Shutterstock.com
53. bottom left. Wetlands International
53. bottom right. Menno de Boer, Wetlands
International
54. UNEP
56. Catay/Shutterstock.com
57. top right. Wetlands International
57. bottom right. Wetlands International
58. Wetlands International
59. Wetlands International
60. Wetlands International
61. left. Alexander Anyfandakis/Peace
Advocate Photography
61. top right: Katja Tsvetkova/Shutterstock.com
61. bottom right. waterpeacesecurity.com
66. bottom right. Chuck W Walker/
Shutterstock.com
67. bottom right. Ken-Ichi Yokoi

78. bottom right. Ward Poppe/Shutterstock.com
79. bottom right. Orlandin/Shutterstock.com
82. kissor meetei/Shutterstock.com
83. Wetlands International Argentina
84. Miho Hiruma
85. Barnabas Davoti/Shutterstock.com
87. Nanang Sujana
88. Ibrahim Aboubacar Hama, Wetlands
International West Africa

Wetlands International Annual Review 202089

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Wetlands International Annual Review 2020