Annual Review 2025
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Biodiversity
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Climate change
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Water
Our annual review and accounts assess how we have delivered on our mission, vision, and strategic intent. We are pleased to present Wetlands International Annual Review and Accounts 2024, in the format of a digital magazine, The Source.
This year’s edition of The Source reflects both the momentum and the challenges shaping the future of wetlands. Across our three strategic streams — Coasts & Deltas, Rivers & Lakes, and Peatlands — we made progress on multiple fronts while facing a shifting geopolitical and financial landscape.
Our key developments in 2024 included:
- Strengthening global restoration efforts through the Mangrove Breakthrough, engaging with over 35 countries in restoration efforts, and witnessing the Ecological mangrove restoration approach influence policy and investment in countries like Indonesia, Senegal, and Guinea-Bissau.
- Expanding the Freshwater Challenge — now joined by 48 countries and the EU — and supporting action through new mapping tools, wetland inventories in the Sahel and Eastern Rift Valley, and river restoration targets adopted in Europe.
- Laying the groundwork for the Peatland Breakthrough, with restoration plans progressing in Argentina, India, Uganda, and Europe, and the inclusion of peatland targets in the EU Nature Restoration Law.
- Supporting wetland communities through sustainable aquaculture practices in Southeast Asia, climate-smart agriculture in East Africa, and livelihood initiatives from the Pantanal to the Rufiji Delta.
- Mobilising finance and partnerships while advocating for wetlands in global frameworks like the CBD, UNFCCC, and the Ramsar Convention.
- Launching evidence-based guidelines for salt marsh and tidal flat restoration, already in use in critical migratory bird areas such as the Yellow Sea.
- Engaging youth through new initiatives like Wetlands Futureproof, with activities spanning COP30, World Wetlands Day, and Ramsar COP preparations.
In a year marked by rising environmental pressure and backsliding on commitments in some regions, this review captures where we’ve made an impact, where challenges remain, and what is now needed to scale action.
