Over 30 countries join the world’s largest freshwater restoration initiative

In a major boost to global efforts to mitigate climate change and adapt its worsening impacts on societies and economies, more than 30 countries yesterday signed up to the Freshwater Challenge – the world’s largest initiative to restore degraded rivers, lakes and wetlands and to protect vital freshwater ecosystems.

The countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America were officially unveiled at a high level event with 15 Ministers hosted by the COP28 Presidency. They joined the six countries that launched the initiative at the UN 2023 Water Conference in New York – Colombia, DR Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Mexico and Zambia.

The champions and new signatories – including Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Canada, Chad, Chile, Dominican Republic, Fiji, France, Finland, Germany, Iraq, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Netherlands, Niger, Norway, Peru, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Slovenia, Spain, Tanzania, UK, and Zimbabwe – contain over 25% of the world’s renewable freshwater resources and are home to almost 1.2 billion people. 

The Freshwater Challenge aims to ensure 300,000km of degraded rivers – equivalent to more than seven times around the Earth – and 350 million hectares of degraded wetlands, an area larger than India, are committed to restoration by 2030, as well as conserve intact ecosystems.

Healthy freshwater ecosystems are critical to mitigating and adapting to climate change. They are seen as the foundation for a water resilient future.

Peatlands are the world’s largest terrestrial carbon store, while river sediment deposited on the sea floor can also sequester large quantities of carbon.

Connected floodplains and healthy wetlands can reduce the impact of extreme floods and build resilience to ever increasing droughts, said wetlands.org.