Mexico joined the international agreement to restore 300,000 kilometers of rivers and 350 million hectares of wetlands by 2030, that is, 30% of the ecosystems of sweet water degraded in the world. This is the largest initiative ever undertaken to restore rivers, lakes and wetlands gradients.
The Freshwater Challenge, launched in the framework of the Conference of the United Nations on Water and signed together with Colombia, Congo, Ecuador, Gabon and Zambia, seeks to mobilize resources and establish financial mechanisms to implement said objectives.
Likewise, the member nations must generate data and collect evidence on the problem in their territories to effectively guide the measures, as well as identify priority areas and update national strategies and plans.
According to UN data, a third of the world’s wetlands have been lost in the last 50 years. Likewise, rivers and lakes are the ecosystems most affected worldwide by human activities. In addition, since 1970, they have collapsed from the 83% in the populations of species that inhabit these spaces.
In addition to this, it is expected that by 2050 the territories with extreme drought multiplied by 5, while it is probable that by that date 5.7 billion people live in areas with lack of water.
Currently, around 4 billion people, representing nearly two-thirds of the world’s population, experience severe water scarcity for at least one month of the year. Likewise, 2 thousand 300 million live in countries with this problem.
The sixth evaluation report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes the severe impacts of climate change on freshwater ecosystems, highlighting the need to protect and restore them to improve adaptation and build resilient societies, economies and ecosystems.
Given this, and on the basis of the Global Biodiversity Framework agreed on Montréal In December 2022, which included restoring 30% of the world’s degraded ‘inland waters’, the Freshwater Challenge seeks to address ecosystem restoration.
The UN Water Conference 2023, jointly organized by the governments of Tajikistan and the Netherlandswas held from March 22 to 24 in NY.
It is the first of its kind carried out by the United Nations in almost 50 years and its objective is to evaluate the progress made in the implementation of the objectives of the Decade of Water Action (2018-2028) on this resource and its sanitation.
It was carried out in order to establish an action agenda to implement the right to vital liquid, as well as to get governments to adopt new commitments.
Within the framework of the meeting, the Mexican delegation also met with representatives of Civil Society Organizations that make up the initiative called “Water Networks”, which seeks to make visible the efforts around water management from the local.
Reference-aristeguinoticias.com
