Big banks’ lending policies are a bit like buses. You wait years for a global bank to publicly commit to stop funding projects that damage the world’s most important wetland protected areas. And then two come along at once — first Barclays and then Standard Chartered.
The announcements back in June might not have made a big splash in a world flooded with so many major stories, but they are headline grabbing news for anyone concerned about the planet’s vanishing wetlands and particularly the future of all the global sites protected under the Ramsar Convention. And how to ensure that other multinational banks follow suit will be an important topic at this week’s Ramsar Conference of the Parties (COP13) in Dubai.
Over the past fifty years, the Convention has swelled to include most countries in the world with North Korea becoming the 170th member earlier this year, with support from a number of partners, including WWF. And this COP comes at a critical time as the recent Global Wetland Outlook painted a bleak picture of the continuing decline of the world’s precious wetlands and the biodiversity they support.
And healthy wetlands are critical for our future too. They not only provide us with water, but they also play a vital role in ensuring food security and creating sustainable livelihoods. They are nature’s magical sponges, helping to reduce risks from extreme floods and keep water flowing in times of drought. And they are essential to help us mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Despite their importance and a global convention dedicated to conserving them, wetlands are disappearing — and they are disappearing fast! The Global Wetland Outlook found that 35% of the world’s remaining wetlands had vanished over the past 45 years — and the rate of loss has increased since 2000. These grim statistics underline the need for even greater urgency. We have to rapidly transform our approaches if we are finally going to reverse the trend.
Which is why the bank announcements are so significant. They are a glimmer of hope from an unlikely source. Barclays was the first to change its public policy, stating that it would no longer fund harmful projects in Ramsar wetlands. Then Standard Chartered went a major step further, announcing that it would “not provide financial services to clients that have operations that are located within, or significantly impact negatively upon wetlands designated under the Ramsar Convention”.
Hopefully, other banks will soon follow suit. But to encourage them and others to act and help halt the catastrophic decline in wetlands, we are going to need to talk much more about Ramsar wetlands — and much more to those who know very little about them.
It will be a monumental challenge to get bankers to focus their attention on — let alone attend — a Ramsar COP, so wetland conservationists need to become more relevant in their world.
Financial institutions and the private sector in general have a key role to play and perhaps the secret to reversing the rapid decline in our wetland systems is finding the sweet spot where the world of conservation and finance meet. Delivering bankable freshwater projects, for instance, that not only deliver an acceptable return but also benefit the environment and in some cases provide the resources to manage existing Ramsar sites or restore those that are degraded.
The world’s leaders are focused on achieving the Global Goals and the Paris Agreement at the moment and rightfully so. Conserving our remaining wetlands cannot be seen as solely a function of the Ramsar Convention. Protecting and restoring them must be integrated into these broader agendas so that wetlands are both political and budgetary priorities.
As the depressing statistics show, decades of effort have not saved our wetlands. It is time to be creative and innovative with our solutions to reverse the decline. These new commitments by Barclays and Standard Chartered show that global financial institutions are starting to understand the importance of wetlands — and the urgent need to stop funding their destruction. Their leadership should be the catalyst for having difficult conversations with those that see wetlands through a very different lens — before there are no healthy wetlands left to see.
