At the Biodiversity Foundation we have been supporting initiatives for the conservation of wetlands and the species that inhabit them since our inception, for which we have allocated more than 2.2 million euros to 50 projects.

From the Biodiversity Foundation we join the celebration of World Wetlands Day, a date that commemorates the signing, on February 2, 1971, of the Ramsar Convention, and this year it is celebrated under the slogan “Wetlands and biodiversity“.

Ramsar has 171 parts, 2,375 sites, covering 253,614,461 hectares, and has become the most important international text on wetland conservation. In Spain, the third country in declared areas (behind the United Kingdom and Mexico) there are 75 enclaves of international importance, occupying 304,564 hectares.

Wetlands are sources of life, as 40% of the world’s species live or reproduce in these spaces. They are also a source of clean water and food, in fact, one in seven people depend on wetlands for their livelihoods. The services provided by wetlands are incalculable and irreplaceable.

Peatlands and mangroves are important carbon sinks and are therefore crucial to tackling a climate emergency that is accelerating biodiversity loss.

Wetlands are disappearing faster than any other ecosystem, in less than 50 years more than 35% have been lost. In addition, 25% of dependent species in inland wetlands and 23% of species in coastal and marine wetlands are threatened with extinction globally.

At the Biodiversity Foundation we have been supporting initiatives for the conservation of wetlands and the species that inhabit them since our inception, for which we have allocated more than 2.2 million euros to 50 projects. Currently, there are four in execution.

“Ex situ conservation of the Iberian marsh bunting: breeding in captivity and reintroduction in humeral of the Natura2000 Network” is a project being developed by the University of Valencia to address the population decline of this bird.  This initiative aims to create a pilot experience of breeding in captivity and subsequent reintroduction and reinforcement of the species to reverse the complicated situation it is going through.

On the other hand, the Polytechnic University of Valencia is working to map and quantify the variations in the water sheets of the salt lagoons existing in the middle part of the Ebro basin, within the framework of the project “Precision monitoring of water fluctuations of Ramsar intermittent saline wetlands in the Middle Ebro Basin by means of spatial remote sensing”. The analysis of the variations of the water sheet together with observations, direct records and the comparison between climate records and fluctuations in the lagoons will allow characterizing both the regime of water inputs due to surface runoff and the drying processes.

The University of León, for its part, has launched “Application of molecular tools for the management of wetlands and aquatic species vulnerable to climate change and globalization” to evaluate the connectivity between wetlands and the presence and abundance of species of interest such as amphibians, an ideal group for their different dispersal capacity and their vulnerability to climate change.

Finally, the Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Valencia coordinates a pilot project for the preparation of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan in the Júcar Hydrographic Demarcation. This research studies the effects of climate change on associated aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as the risks associated with changes in hydrological regimes and the availability of water for different uses such as urban supply and irrigation; the effect on the needs of water for irrigation, on agricultural production and on the energy production of hydroelectric power plants, in order to be able to propose measures to reduce these impacts and transfer them to the rest of the river basin districts.