Learning Through Knowledge
Wetlands International will lead global wetland action to where it is most needed by influencing research agendas, generating and sharing easily accessible and user-friendly knowledge on wetlands and biodiversity in terms of presence, status, values, policies, and plans.
Our world class global tools include the Global Mangrove Watch and Waterbirds Populations Portal. We also coordinate the International Waterbird Census, one of the world’s longest running and largest citizen science initiatives. We will enhance the scope and functionality of our existing tools, while expanding their range to cover all wetland systems in a Wetland Atlas. To counter the growing, direct impact of climate change on wetlands, we will specifically generate knowledge to enhance wetland resilience.
To ensure that new knowledge, tools, and techniques move more quickly into the mainstream, we will expand our work with companies and investors, using our work in sites and landscapes as ‘learning labs’. In doing so, we will take care to work with scientific as well as local and indigenous knowledge.
We will also seize the opportunities provided by Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance the precision, speed, and scale of data collection and analysis – critical for monitoring under-studied and often inaccessible wetlands. Through satellite imagery and machine learning, AI will help us flag changes in land use, hydrology, and vegetation cover in near real time, support decision-making, and enable proactive responses to the worsening impacts of climate change and degradation.
Developing knowledge and practical solutions needs to go hand in hand with mutual, adaptive, and reflective learning, from wetland-dependent communities and local grassroots organisations through to decision makers and the next generation of engineers.
To achieve scale, we use trainer-of-trainers approaches and collaborate with knowledge institutes, universities, and schools to develop materials that can be embedded in standard curricula. By making courses available online, we reach a far wider audience. In addition, we will promote wetland restoration and wise use as livelihood opportunities, highlighting how investing in healthy wetlands can create jobs, support local economies, and build stronger, longer term local capacity.