UK criticised for failing to join UN-backed river restoration scheme

Environmental groups person criticised the UK authorities for not signing up to a United Nations-backed stream and wetland restoration project, contempt galore different nations joining the scheme.

On 23 March astatine the UN Water Conference successful New York, countries from crossed the globe launched the Freshwater Challenge, which aims to reconstruct 300,000 kilometres of rivers and 350 cardinal hectares of wetlands by 2030. The project, which has been hailed arsenic the largest of its benignant successful history, is being jointly led by Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Mexico and Zambia. Canada, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and the US person besides each agreed to instrumentality part.

The strategy calls connected satellite governments to perpetrate to wide targets successful their biodiversity strategies to reconstruct steadfast freshwater ecosystems. James Dalton astatine the International Union for Conservation of Nature says it is “absolutely critical”. Freshwater biodiversity has declined by 80 per cent since 1970, helium says.

“This inaugural forces radical to negociate h2o arsenic a habitat,” says Dalton. “Water is critically important for drinking, but freshwater habitats besides request to beryllium taken earnestly arsenic environments that enactment insects, food and supply a batch of c storage.”

The UK hasn’t joined the scheme, to the disappointment of immoderate biology groups.

“The UK authorities indispensable perpetrate to much ambitious targets erstwhile it comes to h2o prime – the information that they haven’t joined the UN Freshwater Challenge is yet different motion of shying distant from improving the prime of our water,” says a spokesperson for the Marine Conservation Society.

“The deficiency of enactment for this strategy highlights the existent deficiency of strategical attack from Westminister to tackle h2o prime and h2o use,” says a spokesperson for the RSPB.

“Freshwater ecosystems similar lakes, rivers and wetlands are disappearing faster than immoderate different ecosystem we measure,” says Lis Bernhardt astatine the UN Environment Programme, which is backing the scheme. She hopes the Freshwater Challenge volition unit countries to beryllium much circumstantial astir however they program to support these ecosystems. In the UK, this would see rivers, peat bogs and brackish marshes.

“I deliberation going into [the clime summit] COP28 astatine the extremity of this year, we’re going to spot h2o conservation taken into the clime alteration speech adjacent stronger than it was astatine COP27,” says Bernhardt.

Conservation organisation WWF, which is besides portion of the Freshwater Challenge, says it hopes much countries articulation the initiative. “The lone mode to execute existent alteration successful our degraded freshwater systems is simply a wide conjugation of countries, organisations, backstage assemblage moving unneurotic successful adjacent collaboration with communities,” says a spokesperson. “The motorboat was the commencement of gathering this conjugation for freshwater restoration.”

New Scientist asked the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wherefore the state hadn’t joined the scheme, but it didn’t reply the question directly. “At [the biodiversity summit] COP15, the UK was astatine the forefront of efforts to unafraid an ambitious result to halt and reverse biodiversity nonaccomplishment by 2030 and support 30 per cent of the world’s onshore and water by the aforesaid date, including the conservation and restoration of freshwater habitats,” says a spokesperson.

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