Emergency Recovery Plan could halt catastrophic collapse in world’s freshwater biodiversity
With biodiversity vanishing from rivers, lakes and wetlands at an alarming speed this multi-authored Emergency Recovery Plan, aims to reverse the rapid decline in the world’s freshwater species and habitats.
Developed by a global team including scientists from WWF, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Conservation International, IHE Delft and elsewhere, the Emergency Recovery Plan, published today in Bioscience, is the first comprehensive plan to protect and restore freshwater habitats.
Based on cutting-edge science, the Plan prioritizes a series of proven solutions that include improving river flow and connectivity, reducing pollution, protecting wetlands, controlling invasive species and putting an end to overfishing and unsustainable sand mining in lakes and rivers. Its authors, from leading conservation and research organizations around the world, call for urgent steps to tackle the threats that have led to an 83% collapse in freshwater species, and a 30% loss of freshwater ecosystems since 1970.
Wetlands provide hundreds of millions of people globally with water, food, livelihoods and protection from floods, droughts and storms. Critically they host more species per square kilometre than land or oceans – but are losing this extraordinary biodiversity at rates that are two or three times higher. The new Plan recommends clear targets on restoring river flows and controlling illegal and unregulated sand mining, and calls on world governments, meeting at this year’s Conference of Parties on the Convention on Biological Diversity, to agree on a new global deal to conserve and restore biodiversity.
IHE Delft Professor of Aquatic Ecosystems, Ken Irvine, welcomed the publication of the Plan, commenting that:
“We have known for many years that human activities, such as land use changes, industrial pollution, land drainage and alterations of river flows, have been placing extreme pressures on freshwater life. Climate change has magnified those impacts, including making it easier for the spread of alien species. Work at IHE Delft, and in particular on tropical wetlands and maintaining sufficient flow rates in rivers, clearly demonstrates the effects of these increasing pressures on both freshwater ecology and the people who are dependent on these ecosystems. We have worked closely with our partners, including IUCN and WWF, in bringing attention to this global problem, and are delighted with today’s publication.”
You can find out more about IHE Delft’s work with the Alliance for Freshwater Life in their recent paper on the Alliance and their goals.
For more information on the Plan have a look at the press releases from WWF and Conservation International.