A civil society alliance to improve resilience to climate change along the Lujan River basin, Argentina
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Rivers and lakes
With the support of the Canadian Embassy in Argentina, we are working with the civil society of the Lujan River basin, in Argentina, to increase resilience to climate change by improving their participation and influence in the decision making processes that define the future of the region.
The wetlands of the Lujan River basin have a key role in regulating and softening the effects of flood events, preventing erosion and protecting the coast. Many of these services are under threat due to the lack of integral management of the basin. One of the serious threats to the Lujan wetlands is the private gated-communities and urbanisations that are springing up on the flood plains of the Lujan river. While building the urbanised areas workers dry natural wetlands, open new streams, change the course of existing ones and close off the natural flow of rivers.
During a workshop in Lujan city on 8 November, civil society organisations expressed concerned about the new plan proposed to fight the floods. The result of this workshop was a position paper and a called on authorities to consider new approaches such as nature infrastructure solutions and land use planning to increase climate change resilience and to mitigate the impact of the floods.
Header image ‘Río Luján visto desde la telesilla hacia el sur‘ by Dario Alpern used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license