One aspect of freshwater conservation which demanded our attention was the sheer rate of decline in species’ populations and their critical conservation status. The latest Living Planet Index showed that populations of monitored freshwater species had declined by 83% between 1970 and 2014, far outstripping the rate of decline in marine or terrestrial habitats. We also know that 1 in 3 freshwater species is now under threat of extinction. These figures are representative of the global decline in the health of our rivers, lakes and wetlands. For example, it has been shown that if all proposed infrastructure development on the world’s rivers moves forward, then only 7% of the Earth’s river volume, its arteries, will continue to flow naturally.
Coupled with these startling figures, we also undertook our own research and discovered that the current level of response from funders, and from the conservation sector itself, was falling woefully short of this urgent need. For example, we saw that funding for freshwater conservation was significantly below that for other ecosystem types and, partially as a symptom of this, few organisations were working on freshwater conservation. In particular, our analysis of more than $450 million of freshwater conservation funding over 5 years showed that freshwater species themselves were very seldom the focus of conservation efforts. This finding chimes with those of other analyses which highlight that biodiversity is often only a peripheral focus of freshwater-related conservation.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly of all, freshwater species represent a truly wonderful group of flora and fauna, and the health of the environments they live in is vital to our own wellbeing. Freshwater species are almost indescribable in their diversity, with more than 140,000 species ranging from hippos to goldfish, ducks to dragonflies, relying on these habitats. They exhibit amazing adaptations, are kaleidoscopic in colour, and are often of huge cultural or ecological significance. Biodiversity is fundamental to the long-term health of the freshwater systems upon which we all rely for our food, water, sanitation, industry, wellbeing and livelihoods.
The IUCN World Conservation Congress 2020, and its explicit inclusion of freshwater as a Congress theme, provides a wonderful platform to raise awareness among governments, conservation organisations, corporations, and the wider public to the urgent need for a stronger conservation focus on these environments. It also provides an opportunity to table meaningful proposals which advance the protection and sustainable use of freshwater species and habitats, building towards important intergovernmental negotiations at the Convention on Biological Diversity COP 15 later in 2020. We will be working to achieve this along with a network of organisations committed to a better future for freshwater life throughout the Congress and beyond.
About the author
Merlin Veron is a Conservation Research Analyst for Synchronicity Earth
