Wetlands rising: a climate–land nexus webinar on indigenous stewardship and restoration

Author: Murat Gungor, Website and Online Strategy Consultant | February 11, 2026

Photo credit: UNCCD/G20 Global Land Initiative

The world marked World Wetlands Day on 2 February as momentum builds around one of the planet’s most undervalued ecosystems. But according to the Convention Wetlands, they are among the fastest-disappearing ecosystems on Earth, estimated at a rate of 0.52 per cent per year since 1970, driven by pollution, urban expansion, industrial development, agricultural intensification, drainage and invasive species.

The Global Wetland Outlook 2025 paints a stark picture: wetlands are declining rapidly worldwide. Their degradation is accelerating due to land-use change, erosion of customary governance systems, insufficient technical capacity and persistent undervaluing of community-led stewardship.

“Working together with the local communities to use indigenous knowledge systems, what they knew from their ancestry, what they have known innately, from their ancestry [they] use mechanisms and traditional methods that do not over extract the water, do not over deviate the water,” said Dr. Musonda Mumba, Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

Traditional knowledge, safeguarded by Indigenous people, is practical, context-specific and transmitted across generations via songs, stories and rituals. However, inequities persist. While Indigenous people account for 6% of the populations, 25% of land is owned, managed, used and occupied by this group. Yet, their say in governance of wetlands is limited*.

How can we promote integration of traditional knowledge into policies and conservation strategies? How can we encourage community involvement and co-management of wetlands?

This month’s Generation Restoration Dialogue places indigenous wisdom at the centre of worldwide wetlands restoration efforts. Participants will explore how indigenous stewardship, traditional governance and community knowledge can anchor climate resilience and land restoration at scale.

Join us on 17 February 2026 to find out why this dialogue matters – now more than ever

The Outlook 2025 underscores three critical insights that inform this dialogue:

Wetland ecosystems are disappearing three times faster than forests.
Solutions led by Indigenous Peoples and local communities consistently outperform top-down approaches in ecological impact and long-term sustainability.
Strengthening wetland governance requires integrating traditional ecological knowledge, community land rights and culturally grounded stewardship models.

The February 2026 session of the Generation Restoration Dialogues channels this opportunity into an engaging, action-oriented conversation.

Session overview

This 60‑minute dialogue spotlights wetlands as a keystone of the land–climate nexus. The session will:

Explore the critical role of wetlands in biodiversity conservation, climate mitigation and adaptation and sustainable livelihoods,
Draw on key insights and decisions from Ramsar COP15, emphasizing the need to elevate Indigenous and local community leadership,
Showcase examples of community-based restoration, practical frameworks, and knowledge resources that make wetland stewardship scalable and actionable across contexts and
Highlight how indigenous and traditional knowledge systems strengthen cultural heritage, intergenerational learning and long-term climate resilience.

Bonus: dive deeper with our featured podcast

As a companion to this dialogue, explore the podcast episode: Why the wetlands ecosystem is disappearing — and how most people don’t even notice

This engaging episode introduces listeners to global wetland loss, hidden drivers of ecosystem decline and the role of community action, perfect pre‑listening for the February session.

Whether you are a youth leader, community organizer, educator, policymaker or restoration practitioner, this dialogue offers rich insights and practical pathways to scale action.

*See the PowerPoint Presentation on the World Wetlands Day 2026 Materials webpage.

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.

Executive Director's Message

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