Safeguarding rivers and river dolphins helps driving progress under SDG 14 — life below water. But it contributes to many more.
This article is part of the series — Post-Pandemic Development Priorities.
This is a positive blog, despite the challenging times we live in. Sitting in my makeshift home office for the last nine months, I’ve spent many hours watching the Rhine river flow by, seemingly unfazed by the pandemic. But each time I’ve gazed out my window, I’ve been reminded of other rivers whose health and resilience have been harmed by this crisis. In particular, I’ve thought about the impacts on the world’s endangered river dolphins that I’ve dedicated my professional life to conserving, and the health of the eight major rivers they call home: the Amazon and Orinoco in South America; and the Ganges, Indus, Mekong, Irrawaddy, Yangtze and Mahakam in Asia.
River dolphins are important indicators of the health of their rivers, which are also the lifeblood of huge economies. If the dolphins are facing additional dangers, then so are their rivers and the people that depend on them. Disturbing field reports from my colleagues indicate the pandemic is adversely impacting river dolphins and their habitats. Because of formal and informal economies coming to a halt, millions of people have been forced to seek alternative sources of income. Even if these activities are legal, this has resulted in a massively increased pressure on wildlife habitats, including those of river dolphins. Meanwhile, law enforcement and governmental oversight over illegal hunting, fishing, logging and mining have been hard hit by movement restrictions. For example, in recent months seven dead Irrawaddy river dolphins were reported in Myanmar — from a critically endangered population that only numbers 79. Local experts attribute these deaths to an increase in illegal fishing activities. Similar reports have come in from other rivers concerning populations of all five river dolphin species. In this way, COVID-19 has exacerbated the pressures on a system already under high ecological stress.
WWF’s Living Planet Report 2020 detailed the ongoing collapse in freshwater biodiversity with populations of freshwater species falling by 84 percent on average since 1970. For freshwater megafauna such as large fish and river dolphins, the figure is even higher: their populations have suffered a catastrophic 88 percent drop. It is no surprise that all five river dolphin species are categorised as endangered by the IUCN red list. Over the last decade, we have already lost one river dolphin species, the Chinese baiji. Others are on the brink of extinction.
Luckily, and here the positive wave comes in, we know what needs to be done to change the tide. The recent Global Biodiversity Outlook outlined the key steps required to implement an Emergency Recovery Plan, which will reduce the rapid rate of decline of freshwater species — steps that involve action by governments, civil society organisations, communities, companies and investors.
Despite the daunting task ahead of us, I am positive we can build a world in which people and nature live in harmony. In 2021, countries will come together to negotiate new nature conservation targets under the Convention on Biological Diversity and to mark the 50th anniversary of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. We need to seize these opportunities. Governments, businesses and all stakeholders need to go beyond paper commitments and take concrete actions that show they are serious about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While if we can save river dolphins, we can save so much more.
Safeguarding rivers and river dolphins helps driving progress under SDG 14 — life below water. But it contributes to many more, including ending poverty (SGD 1), zero hunger (SDG 2), health and well-being (SDG 3), climate change resilience (SDG 13), life on land (SDG 15) and, of course, water and sanitation for all (SDG 6). Need convincing? Let’s take one example: the connection between river dolphins and freshwater fisheries.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) latest report on the state of the world’s fisheries found that the freshwater fish catch hit a record 12 million tonnes in 2018, underlining how important freshwater fish are to the food security and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people. This figure is certainly an underestimate, since millions of tonnes of freshwater fish are not reflected in official statistics. As people, dolphins feed on these fish, sharing a mutual dependency.
Along with better governmental fisheries management and regulation, specific steps can be taken that benefit river dolphins and people. An example from Cambodia: Diversify livelihoods via aquaculture, permaculture and river dolphin ecotourism. Establish community river reserves, shown to boost fish diversity and abundance in Thailand. And innovation can complement these approaches: Fishers that rig ‘pingers’ to their fishing gear, deter dolphins and avoid accidental bycatch as demonstrated in India.
But to achieve progress towards SDG 14 (and the other SDGs), we need an integrated approach that addresses whole river basins. Assuring enough clean water for nature as well as for irrigation, drinking, washing and industry is a global priority — and the responsibility of us all.
This requires system level thinking, which is particularly important when it comes to hydropower dams and barrages, which affect basic river functions. They block connectivity for fish and dolphins, trap sediment causing riverbank and delta erosion, damage water quality, and reduce water and nutrient flow. We can avoid these detrimental effects by smart planning, like choosing other renewable energy sources (solar, wind) that are low-cost, low-carbon and low-conflict for rivers and communities. We can mitigate harmful impacts of existing dams and barrages by implementing environmental flows that mimic the natural water fluctuations a river needs to function. For example, the Three Gorges Dam in China almost wiped out an economically important fish species (Carp) but it recovered after e-flow implementation. The Mexican government is applying water reserves, a practice that safeguards the amount of water that nature needs to function, while also ensuring enough for people.
Let us get inspired by those good practices; learn, improve, and scale them up. Let us build back better and create a society we all mutually benefit from. This requires cooperation between many diverse stakeholders. Of course, this is challenging. If it were easy, we would have already done it long time ago. But I am confident. The moment is here. #TogetherPossible.
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Daphne Willems (1976) is a river ecologist and works for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) leads the Global River Dolphin Rivers Initiative. She ...
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