Our offices WETLANDS OUR WORK OUR NETWORK ABOUT US NEWS & INSIGHTS KNOWLEDGE BASE DONATE Wetlands International Coasts and Deltas Home » Our Work » Coasts and Deltas Mangroves, mudflats, saltmarshes and sea grasses in deltas and along the coast provide millions of people with a vital source of income and protect them from the ravages of storms and floods. Bridging the land and the sea, they are home to a large number of plants and animals. As such are the basis for safety and of a prosperous economy in both cities and rural areas. Deltas are complex environments, typically comprising different ecosystem types and land uses, with diverse stakeholder perspectives and interests. SEE OUR FEATURED WORK AND CASES We want to safeguard and restore coastal wetland ecosystems as essential features of resilient and productive coastal landscapes. We will achieve our goal by tailoring our work to the different contexts we typically encounter in our target areas. Sometimes all of these approaches may be employed within different zones of one large coastal landscape. The value of coasts and deltas As connectors between marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems they serve as ecological corridors that provide breeding grounds for fish and other marine fauna, stopover sites for millions of migratory birds, and hunting and grazing grounds for visiting megafauna from sharks to tigers. They store large amounts of carbon in biomass and soils – typically more than equivalent areas of rainforests – and by regulating flows of water and sediment they contribute to building robust and diverse coastlines. All this makes them important for humans too. As fishing grounds, shelters and places for aquaculture and recreation, they sustain hundreds of millions of livelihoods, many of them directly dependent on wetland services. Coastal wetlands provide vital protection from storms, floods and salt water intrusion and in some cases even sea level rise. With almost a quarter of the world’s population located on lowlands within 100 kilometres of the ocean, the risks that deterioration of coastal ecosystems pose in an era of climate change are increasing fast. Threats and challenges Coastal wetlands are being invaded, fragmented and degraded by economic developments such as infrastructure projects, ill-advised coastal protection schemes, sand mining, agriculture and aquaculture. As well as damaging ecosystems, such projects disturb sediment and water flows, causing cascading effects along hundreds of kilometres of coasts. A piecemeal approach to countering such threats is unlikely to work. But integrated planning at the scale necessary is hard, when jurisdiction in coastal and intertidal areas is often unclear, competing claims for land exist and capacities for cross-sectoral collaboration are lacking. Nonetheless, it is essential if we are to halt the slide to coastal insecurity and turn the tide towards maintenance and restoration of wetland resources. Climate change, coupled with rising sea levels and ocean acidification, pose increasing challenges for coastal regions that include flooding, coastal erosion and saline invasion of underground freshwater reserves. Meanwhile, the ability of wetlands to maintain themselves by migrating inland is often thwarted by coastal defences and other infrastructure. Their further decline will release their carbon into the air. Such impacts remain insufficiently accounted for in coastal planning. To safeguard and restore coastal wetlands requires policymakers to fully appreciate the values they offer and the risks posed by their loss. Enablers to scaling up the safeguarding and restoration of coasts and deltas To inspire change, the establishment of global targets for restoration and enhanced management of coastal resources, plus strategic partnerships for enhanced management of the marine environment, such as the Global Mangrove Alliance, can provide momentum for public-private collaboration across sectors. Momentum built among development banks, government agencies and engineering firms can promote combined green-grey coastal engineering approaches, in line with Building with Nature principles. Strengthening the recognition of coastal wetland values in climate policies and plans plays an important role in scaling up the safeguarding and restoration of coastal wetlands. For instance, incentivising companies and government agencies interested in the carbon values of wetlands, to upscale conservation. Where we work We work with some of the world’s most populous and vulnerable coastlines including Java, Indonesia; the Rufiji Delta, Tanzania; the Saloum Delta, Senegal; the Parané Delta, Argentina, the Tana delta, East Kalimantan, and the Mahanadi Delta. Partnerships and platforms for change We work closely with the four other founding partners of the Global Mangrove Alliance: Conservation International, IUCN, The Nature Conservancy and WWF; as well as the broader membership base of the Alliance, including the Red Cross movement, Wildlife Conservation Society and the Zoological Society of London We are actively exploring landscape scale mangrove recovery programmes with companies Permian Global, Boskalis and Greenchoice, with whom we have entered into partnership We are an active partner of the Ecoshape Building with Nature Consortium, in which we collaborate with water engineering companies, knowledge institutes and governments. In countries, we work with dozens of civil society organisations, academic bodies and government READ MORE ABOUT HOW WE WORK IN PARTNERSHIP Share this post: Featured work and cases Building with Nature Indonesia In Northern Java, Indonesia, we are building a stable coastline through a Building with Nature approach. Building with Nature is a comprehensive engineering approach that […] Building with Nature Asia Through the Building with Nature Asia initiative we accelerate adaptation by integrating nature based solutions into water related infrastructure in Asia. We are building climate […] Mangrove Capital Africa, Senegal and Tanzania Working in the Saloum and Rufiji deltas, Mangrove Capital Africa is a ten-year programme focusing on safeguarding and restoring African mangrove ecosystems for the benefit of […] Global Mangrove Watch Working with dozens of universities, NGOs and government agencies across the world, Global Mangrove Watch is an online platform that uses satellite imagery to develop […] Sustainable wetlands management in Tana Delta, Kenya The Tana River Delta in Kenya is one of the largest and most significant coastal delta ecosystems in Eastern Africa. In order to protect the […] Securing water for climate resilience in Chennai, India Known as the ‘City of 1000 tanks’, Chennai now stands out as having the lowest per capita availability of water among the major metropolitan areas […] Reducing flood risks in Panama City Upon request by the Municipality and supported by Wetlands International, a Dutch Risk Reduction team evaluated ways to address the flood risk problems in Panama […] Contact Person Communications Department communications@wetlands.org Our impact Between 2015 and 2020, we have achieved: Based on our successful pilot project, the Indonesia government agreed to implement the Building with Nature approach along a 20 kilometre coastline in Northern Java. Implementation of coastal wetland conservation strategies in Cacheu (Guinea-Bissau), Saloum-Niumi (Senegal and Gambia) and the Rufiji- Mafia-Kilwa seascape (Tanzania), and other regions, covering an area in excess of 150,000 hectares. In these regions, small scale community-based conservation and livelihoods measures are being upscaled and management plans are under development. Several of our corporate partners have shown interest to support the development of carbon projects to resource the conservation and restoration of mangroves to compensate for their carbon footprint. Among others we are exploring opportunities for developing such projects in Guinea-Bissau and Indonesia. We will exceed our target for uptake in three large-scale coastal planning initiatives. Our Building with Nature project in Indonesia emerged as a landmark initiative that shows how ‘building with nature’ can boost coastal resilience in rural and urban areas. Our outreach has stimulated commitments to invest in nature-based solutions among national government and multilateral agencies, including in Panama and the Philippines. We engaged the interest of governments in five countries in Asia to develop an ambitious programme that stimulates large-scale adoption of Building with Nature across the region. This offers opportunities to upscale impact beyond 2020. In 2019 we supported integration of wetland conservation and restoration in the Manila Bay master planning process. With the Indonesian government we developed a roadmap to address soil subsidence problems along the northern coast of Java. Action in ten key deltas is on track. We participated in global and regional initiatives that promote sustainable management of deltas and coastal areas. In coastal cities including Semarang, Panama City and Manila, we successfully integrated wetlands in urban development and flood risk reduction plans. In several rural deltas we developed integrated management plans that support conservation and restoration of wetland ecosystem and sustainable management of water flows, including in the Paraná (Argentina), Rufiji (Tanzania) and Saloum (Senegal) deltas. We have seen encouraging achievements in 2019 and are on track. We worked with key platforms such as the Global Center for Adaptation and the Global Resilience Partnership to build political will and private sector interest in wetland nature-based solutions. In Indonesia the government has invested significantly in the ‘Building with Nature’ approach across the country to address coastal erosion. Income diversification and increase due to sustainable wetland enterprise e.g. Saloum. Contact us P.O. 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