Whispers from the marsh, how to save wetlands

Author: Aarthi Sundaram, UNCDD/G20 Global Land Initiative, Intern | July 24, 2025

A flamboyance of flamingos take their time in the sea, in Dalyan, Turkey

Photo Credit: Hanifi Koç, 2/6th Greenstorm Photo Festival, UNCCD-G20 GLI

The word “wetlands” often conjures up images of quiet waters, half–submerged trees and reed-filled shores.. Yet this picture captures only a small part of a much broader landscape.

Imagine instead, vast cascading rice paddies carved into a hillside, shimmering like emerald steps under the morning sun — these too are wetlands, integral to the livelihoods of millions.

Wetlands take many forms: from freshwater marshes and mangroves to peatlands, tidal flats, lakes, coral reefs, and man-made rice fields. They cover only around 6% of the Earth’s surface and deliver an estimated USD$7.98 to USD$39.01 trillion United States dollars in ecosystem services every year.

This value, which is immense, stems from their vital, but often overlooked, functions. As a result, wetlands continue to vanish at a disconcerting rate. The extent of this loss especially when set against the benefits received, underscores a critical and urgent need for global action.

Wetlands equal to half a billion football fields lost since 1970

According to the Global Wetland Outlook 2025 (GWO 2025) released a week ago, wetlands are disappearing at a rate of 0.52% annually, with an estimated 22% lost since 1970—an area larger than India, or roughly half a billion football fields.

While the magnitude of the current wetlands decline is deeply concerning, the condition of existing wetlands is equally, if not more, alarming. Nearly one in four remaining wetlands is in poor ecological health, with widespread degradation reported across all regions. There is a need to protect to what is remaining.

These are some of the challenges that the Parties to the Convention on Wetlands are expected to discuss during their fifteenth meeting, which is taking place from 23 to 31 July 2025 in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

What makes wetlands valuable?

Wetlands play an indispensable role in sustaining ecosystems, economies and communities. They purify water by filtering pollutants, recharge aquifers, and provide the clean water on which all life depends. This clean water then supports a vibrant web of life: birds, animals, and aquatic species that thrive in wetland estuaries.

In the United States alone, coastal wetlands sustain a prawn industry worth over USD$500 million annually, linking ecological health directly to local economies.

Beyond biodiversity, wetlands also contribute to food security. Rice paddies, a type of man-made wetlands, feed more than half of the world’s population.

These ecosystems also act as natural buffers. Mangroves and marshes absorb the force of storm surges and floods, protecting vulnerable coastal communities. Inland, peatlands act as major carbon sinks, quietly storing greenhouse gases and playing a critical role in climate mitigation.

Why choose conservation over restoration?

Now that the need to protect wetlands is widely recognised, the path forward requires more than momentum, it calls for intention, foresight and care.

One of the most compelling findings from the GWO 2025 is this: restoration is neither simple nor inexpensive. Data drawn from global case studies show that the cost of restoring wetlands ranges from USD$1,000 to over USD$70,000 per hectare, depending on the type of ecosystem and its condition.

What’s cheaper is conserving existing wetlands. It is both significantly more affordable and more effective. Prioritising protection over restoration is not only a practical decision, but an economic one.

The estimated global financing required to achieve wetland conservation and restoration targets are USD$275-550 billion per year, a figure far exceeding current investment levels.

Currently, biodiversity conservation across all ecosystems accounts for only 0.25% of global Gross Domestic Product. This signals a substantial underinvestment in wetlands despite their strategic importance to biodiversity, climate, water and disaster resilience agendas.

When wetland ecosystems are cleared for development or drained for short-term gains, the long-term costs come back many times over. For example, in the form of climate-related disasters, economic disruption or human displacement. Embedding wetlands into national development strategies is no longer optional. It’s essential.

Practical Policy Pathways Forward

While we understand the values and economic importance of wetlands, this knowledge needs to be translate into coherent action through policies, planned frameworks and financial systems that reflect the actual worth of these ecosystems.

The Global Wetland Outlook 2025 proposes the way forward through integrated approaches that prioritise conservation, mobilize investment and embed wetlands at the heart of sustainable development.

The report also underscores the need to break out of the sectoral silos. Wetlands are seen as isolated environmental concerns, but in reality they sit at the intersection of water management, agriculture, energy systems and infrastructure planning. Integrating them into national water strategies, land-use policies and infrastructure development ensures they are not sacrificed in pursuit of short-term gains.

It also stress the need to recognise wetlands as shared public assets. But this requires strong institutional alignment especially across sectors like agriculture, water, energy and urban development, where decisions often directly impact wetland health.

Alongside institutional reform, the Report recommends strengthening how wetlands are valued in economic and environmental planning. It argues that when wetlands are more likely to be protected when their benefits are visible in budgets and investment frameworks.

Some examples of the natural capital accounting tools that allow countries to measure the true contribution of wetlands to national well-being are the UN’s System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) or the Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site – based Assessment (TESSA).

Financing for wetlands is another often overlooked policy area.

Wetlands receive a fraction of the funding they need despite their vital role in delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.

This gap can be addressed through innovative financial instruments such as blue bonds, biodiversity credits and payment for ecosystem services (PES). Public–private partnerships, backed by smart regulation and risk guarantees, can help scale these approaches while ensuring transparency and equity.

Wetland conservation can also be financed through policy tools that embed environmental accountability into development decisions, an approach that is gaining momentum.

There is also the biodiversity net gain frameworks – already adopted in some countries. It requires developers to deliver measurable ecological benefits.

Wetland-specific offset mechanisms, including mitigation banking, offer another pathway to fund restoration and conservation efforts if they are backed by rigorous standards and governance.

Wetlands are not peripheral ecosystems. They are foundational to climate action, food and water security, and disaster resilience. The crisis they face is silent, but the solutions are clear. Conservation is the most cost-effective and impactful path forward but it requires institutional courage, financial innovation and a willingness to see wetlands not as wastelands, but as lifelines.

Download the Global Wetland Outlook 2025

Director's Message

The year 2024 was pivotal for the Global Land Initiative. Land degradation and restoration remained prominent on the global policy agenda throughout.

The UN Environmental Assembly, G7 Leaders’ Summit, G20 Environment and Climate Change Ministers’ meeting, and BRICS Leaders’ Summit addressed land degradation and committed to scaling up land restoration efforts.

The European Union passed a new Restoration Law mandating quantitative targets for land restoration. The UNFCCC, UNCBD and UNCCD Conferences of the Parties (COPs), held during the last quarter of the year, reinforced land restoration as a crucial solution to combat land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change.

Building on this favorable policy momentum, the Global Land Initiative continued to develop and deliver a robust program. In collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), we completed a database on Global Restoration Commitments by countries under the UNCCD, UNCBD, UNFCCC and the Bonn Challenge.

Representing a significant increase in global commitments since 2021, the total global commitment now stands at 1.2 billion hectares, with 30 countries, including 11 G20 members, pledging to restore over 10 million hectares each.

The UNCCD, with financial support from the Global Land Initiative, published the first global restoration economy international report, titled, Investing in Land’s Future: Financial needs assessment for UNCCD. The report defines the private sector’s growing role in land restoration and its potential for creating green jobs.

The study outlines key recommendations to support the growth of the restoration economy, which has an associated market survey valued at $37 billion globally, growing at 8.2% annually and is projected to reach $70 billion by 2031. Together, these studies stressed the need for focused policy action to encourage private sector investment and engagement in the restoration economy.

Working with the International Trade Centre (ITC), the Global Land Initiative launched the first cohort of the “Global Ecopreneurs Program,” training 100 young entrepreneurs from restoration startups. These entrepreneurs received training on improving business plans and pitching to investors. We plan to scale this program regionally to reach 10,000 ecopreneurs by 2029.

Training remained a cornerstone of the Global Land Initiative, with programs on the restoration of mining areas, of urban lands, of lowland-based systems, of drylands and with biosaline agriculture. These trainings consistently attracted more applications than available slots. To accommodate this high demand and broader participation, we also conducted online webinars on these topics, in English, Arabic and French.

The first University Curriculum Course on Sustainable Agriculture for Land Restoration was launched this year. It reached over 400 university teachers, with over 100 trained on implementing the curriculum. A university module on urban land restoration is in its final stages.

Representatives from 25 countries attended the second Global Changemaker Academy for Parliamentarians held in Bonn. With the European Union Restoration Law’s passage, global best practices can now be discussed and adapted to national contexts.

The Global Land Initiative’s visibility surged with participation in the G20 Environment and Climate Change Working Group meetings in Brazil, the COPs of the UNCBD and UNCCD and 7 other international exhibitions. In December, the Initiative, in partnership with Germany’s Federal Museum of Arts and Sciences, opened the Save Land: United for Land Museum Exhibition, the first museum exhibition on land restoration, which will run until June 2025.

Online engagement grew, reaching over 35,000 newsletter subscribers and over 14,000 followers across social media platforms, and a global reach of nearly 400,000. The Global Photography Festival, which attracted 17,000 entries from 154 countries, further boosted visibility.

The Global Restoration Information Hub was launched in July 2024. It is a compilation of globally available data on land restoration from credible sources. The site provides information on global best practices, restoration commitments, best practice legislations, documentaries, restoration actors and other databases.

The Initiative issued a global call for communities and NGOs to submit their restoration projects for small grant support, receiving over 600 submissions from 100 countries. Forty-one projects from XX countries were selected for funding.

[Statement on faith, if the faith report is finalized]

The G20 Global Land Initiative Steering Committee was kept informed of developments through regular communication. It met in July and continues to provide guidance on program implementation. It received the work plan for 2025-26; an exciting period of action is ahead.

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