Closing the driver–response loop for halting and reversing wetland degradation and loss from agriculture
C. M. Finlayson
A B C * , M. S. Fennessy D , R. C. Gardner A E , R. Kumar A F , M. P. McCartney G and A. A. van Dam B
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Abstract
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands has considered agriculture–wetland interactions, but without linking policy responses to agricultural drivers of change.
Assess the disconnect between the rhetoric of analysing and reporting on the role of agriculture in wetland loss and degradation (the ‘drivers’) with actions on the ground (the ‘responses’).
An analysis of almost 400 Convention documents was undertaken to understand how the Convention has addressed agriculture and what responses were identified. The documents were filtered through a word search for their relevance to the direct and indirect drivers of degradation in wetlands.
Although there was a focus on issues and problem framing and generic responses, they were insufficient to address the range of drivers underpinning agriculture–wetland interactions. They also present a generic and partial view of agriculture and broader food systems.
We make the following four recommendations for addressing the driver–response gap: deepening our understanding of the drivers in agriculture that affect wetlands; exploring and exploiting windows of opportunities within agriculture that are aligned with wetland use; enhancing our ability to work with indirect drivers; and ensuring that resolutions agreed through the Convention are more specific on key drivers of adverse change in wetlands.
The current impetus for ‘agriculture transformation’ creates an opportunity for the Convention to broaden its engagement in wetland–agriculture interactions and close the driver–response loop.
Keywords: agriculture transformation, agriculture–wetland interactions, direct and indirect drivers, ecological character, Ramsar Convention, transformative change, wetland degradation, wise use.
Introduction
As the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands moves past its golden anniversary, either in 2021 (50 years after it was opened for signature) or in 2025 (50 years after its entry into force) (Finlayson et al. 2022), sombre reflection may be more warranted than celebration. This is particularly the case given reports of shortcomings in the implementation of the Convention (Finlayson 2012; Geijzendorffer et al. 2019; Davidson et al. 2020a; Finlayson and Gardner 2020) and weaknesses in the reporting mechanisms adopted by the Convention (Davidson et al. 2020b; Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2022a, 2022b). Despite a greater appreciation for the ecosystem services that wetlands provide (Davidson et al. 2018), wetland loss and degradation continue around the world, as expressed in the Convention’s Global Wetland Outlook (Gardner and Finlayson 2018), in reporting by Contracting Parties to the Convention (Davidson et al. 2020a), in recent citizen-science surveys (McInnes et al. 2020; Simpson et al. 2021), and in modelling of the historical distribution of inland wetlands (Fluet-Chouinard et al. 2023).
The Global Wetland Outlook further confirmed that there is incontrovertible evidence (i.e. data and information) that wetlands continue to be lost and degraded through a combination of direct and indirect drivers (as described in the framework used in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005 and by the Convention as the basis of a conceptual framework for the ‘wise use’ of wetlands; Fig. 1). Direct drivers include the drainage and conversion of wetlands for agriculture, the introduction of pollutants and invasive species, extraction of water, food and fibre, and actions that affect the water regime (Gardner and Finlayson 2018; van Dam et al. 2023). These drivers are, in turn, regulated by indirect drivers, especially those relating to the demands for food, fibre and energy, and the construction and operation of water control infrastructure (Gardner and Finlayson 2018). The wise use of wetlands, as promoted by the Convention (Finlayson et al. 2011; Pritchard 2018), requires a thorough understanding of the multiple drivers of change (Fig. 1) and their interactions, so that the root causes of wetland loss and degradation can be addressed.
Conceptual framework for the wise use of wetlands adopted by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2005a) based on the relationships between the indirect and direct drivers of changes in the biodiversity and ecosystem services of wetlands and human wellbeing. The cross bars on the arrows show responses to address adverse changes or outcomes. The classification of drivers is based on that in the Convention’s Global Wetland Outlook 2018.
In many countries, particularly those with lower per capita incomes or food deficits, wetlands remain central to agricultural production, food security and many people’s livelihoods and well-being (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2018a, 2018b). McCartney et al. (2010) pointed out that in Africa and in Asia, a significant proportion of the economic value of wetlands is derived from agriculture. At the same time, agriculture has been repeatedly identified as generating the primary drivers of wetland loss and degradation. At the first Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention in 1980, it was noted that, globally, many wetlands were being degraded by, inter alia, filling, drainage, reclamation, intensive agriculture and aquaculture, and industrial activities, or were endangered by pollution and eutrophication (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 1980). Later COPs called for mainstreaming wise use of wetlands into agricultural policies and emphasised the need for the wetland community to directly engage with the agricultural community (e.g. as expressed in the Changwon Declaration; Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2008a). As steps towards further engagement with the agricultural sector, the International Water Management Institute, a member of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) global network of agricultural research centres, became an International Organisation Partner of the Convention (Clarke and McCartney 2018), and the Convention arranged for wetland experts to participate in global assessments of wetlands and agriculture (see Finlayson and D’Cruz 2005; Finlayson et al. 2005; Falkenmark et al. 2007).
The third Ramsar Strategic Plan (2009–2015) (Ramsar Convention Secretariat 2010a) encouraged Contracting Parties to the Convention to develop a National Wetland Policy (or equivalent) alongside and integrated with other strategic and planning processes, including those on agriculture. This led to an expanded effort working with partner organisations and active participation in the wetland components of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Finlayson and D’Cruz 2005; Finlayson et al. 2005), the Guidelines on Agriculture and Wetlands Interactions (Wood and van Halsema 2008), Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (Falkenmark et al. 2007; Gordon et al. 2010), and the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Rice et al. 2018; Díaz et al. 2019) that have considered the status and trends and drivers of change in ecosystems globally. The fourth Strategic Plan (2016–2024; Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2015) also endorses sustainable agricultural practices that minimise wetland impacts. Despite these efforts, it is evident that the conservation and wise use of wetlands, as advocated by the Convention (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2005a; Finlayson et al. 2011; Pritchard 2018), have not been achieved (Gardner and Finlayson 2018; Davidson et al. 2020b).
At the same time, there is an increasing recognition of the unsustainability of contemporary agri-food systems, including agricultural practices, and of the urgent need to transform such systems to address multiple challenges, including climate change, hunger or malnutrition, and poverty as well as the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services (Boelee et al. 2013; Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research 2021). Consensus is lacking on how best to address these multiple and interconnected challenges. Although a broad spectrum of approaches has been proposed, including agroecology, nature-positive solutions, regenerative agriculture, landscape approaches etc., none explicitly identifies wetlands, but all move beyond a primary focus on food production to a perspective that acknowledges both (1) the critical role of natural ecosystems in maintaining agricultural productivity through the provision of a range of ecosystem services, and (2) the critical role of agriculture in the protection of ecosystems, biodiversity and ecosystem services. It is not possible to determine the extent to which the Ramsar Convention may have influenced this change in approach; however, at the COP in 2022, it was noted that the incorporation of wetlands in national agricultural programs (as called for in the fourth Strategic Plan) had declined since the previous COP in 2018 (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2022c). Despite this situation, the alignment of priorities and the increasing political imperative to transform agriculture and, more broadly, agri-food systems (also incorporating non-food products, such as fibres and biofuels) offers an opportunity for the Convention to positively influence key elements of the agricultural sector.
With this background, we turned our attention towards what accounts for the disconnect between the rhetoric of analysing and reporting the causes of wetland loss and degradation (the ‘drivers’), and actions on the ground (the ‘responses’). We address this driver–response loop as a necessary condition for more effective wetland management, using wetland–agricultural connections as a case study. Specifically, we examine the following questions:
How has the discussion on wetlands and agriculture been framed within the Ramsar Convention?
How do the resolutions and accompanying guidance provided by the Convention address the direct and indirect drivers of adverse wetland change related to agriculture?
What are the major gaps within the agricultural-specific resolutions and guidance that, if filled, would provide sufficient advice to the Contracting Parties to take affirmative action to address agricultural drivers of adverse wetland change?
Methods
To address these questions, we analysed the role of agriculture in generating major direct and indirect drivers of adverse change in distribution of global wetlands by using the categories of drivers presented in the Global Wetland Outlook (Gardner and Finlayson 2018). These drivers were derived from the terms used in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment that included a specific set of indirect and direct drivers of ecosystem change and their impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being (see Fig. 1). The direct drivers, those that result in biophysical change at local or regional scales, were categorised as, (1) changes to the physical regime of a wetland (salinity, sediments, water quality, water frequency, thermal), (2) extraction of material from a wetland (water, soil and peat, biota), (3) introduction of material to a wetland (nutrients, other chemicals, invasive species, solid waste), and (4) structural change to a wetland (drainage, conversion, burning). Indirect drivers are the social processes that create the direct drivers and generally have a broader or diffuse effect; these were categorised as those associated with (1) food production and supply, (2) food demand and (3) governance.
A review of the 366 Ramsar resolutions and guidance documents adopted at the 14 COPs, as well as 30 allied documents and publications emerging through the Convention processes (12 technical reports, 13 briefing notes and 5 policy briefs) was undertaken to understand how agriculture has been addressed over the history of the Convention. The documents were filtered through a search for the word ‘agriculture’ and then examined for their relevance to the direct- and indirect-driver categories of wetland degradation as a consequence of agricultural activities, yielding 129 documents (105 resolutions and recommendations, 9 briefing notes, 10 technical reports and 5 policy briefs). The documents were then classified under the following subject headings (i.e. resolution categories):
Knowledge (including wetland inventories, status of wetlands, risk assessments and specific issues such as toxic chemicals);
Integrated planning (including site management and integrating wetlands in river-basin and coastal-zone management);
Restoration (including setting principles and guidelines and restoration of specific wetland types such as degraded peatlands and blue carbon ecosystems);
Wise use (including aspects related to the definition and implementation of the wise-use approach, description of ecological character and conservation of specific wetland types such as peatlands, intertidal wetlands and others);
Cross-sectoral collaboration (including working with different sectors, multilateral environmental agreements and United Nations organisations and partnerships);
Communication, education, participation and awareness (including aspects of cultural values, and participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, education); and
Policy and regulation (including national wetland policies, and environmental-impact assessments).
A score was assigned to each of the assessed documents for each subject heading on the basis of their relevance to agriculture (ranging from 0, no relevance; 1, recognition of the driver; 2, detailed guidance, not specific to agriculture–wetland interactions; 3, detailed guidance, specific to agriculture–wetland interactions). The final score for the driver is the median value (as the data are not symmetrical) of the individual scores assigned to each document. We then identified and examined agricultural-specific resolutions and guidance (i.e. those documents scored as a ‘3’) to determine gaps in the driver–response loop. These specific resolutions were classified as either superficial or detailed, with the former being general in nature and encouraging outcomes or programs without offering detailed advice, indicating a gap in the driver–response loop, and the latter providing detailed advice. (An overview of issues contained within the main individual documents that addressed agriculture–wetland interactions is provided in the section ‘The framing of wetlands and agriculture interactions within the Ramsar Convention’ in the Supplementary material).
In addressing the questions given above, we acknowledge that the adoption of a resolution or recommendation at a COP will not in itself bring change in the status and trends in wetlands. Rather, tangible action needs to be implemented to realise change. In this analysis, we view the adoption of a formal resolution or recommendation as a sign that actions are intended and agreed by the Contracting Parties who then need to establish their individual enabling mechanisms for implementation. The non-binding nature of COP resolutions is part of the processes in place that recognise and respect the sovereignty of individual countries for managing their wetlands (Gardner et al. 2023a).
Results
Mapping of Ramsar resolutions and guidance against drivers of change
A mapping of agriculture-related resolutions and guidance associated with the agriculture sector against the categories of direct and indirect drivers in wetlands is presented in Table 1, with a summary shown pictorially in Fig. 2.
| Driver category | Factors affected by the direct driver | Ramsar subject headings | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knowledge | Integrated planning | Wetland restoration | Wise use | Cross-sectoral collaboration | Communication, education, participation and awareness | Policy and regulation | |||
| Direct drivers | |||||||||
| Physical regime alteration | Salinity | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| Sediment | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Water quality | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Water frequency | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Thermal | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Extraction | Water | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| Soil and peat | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Biota | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Introduction | Nutrients | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| Chemicals | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Invasive species | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Solid waste | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Structural change | Drainage | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| Conversion | 3 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ||
| Burning | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Indirect drivers | |||||||||
| Food production and supply | Knowledge systems | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Socio-economic condition | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Enabling environment including land ownership, rights and tenure | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Food demand | Food consumption and preferences | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | |
| Globalisation of markets | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Governance | Enabling environment | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| Economic instruments | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | ||
| Policy and regulation | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | ||
| Communication and participation | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Values are median values of the scores assigned to all documents reviewed (also see the section ‘The framing of wetlands and agriculture interactions within the Ramsar Convention’ in the Supplementary material). 0, no guidance; 1, limited to recognition of issues; 2, specific guidance but not directly relevant to indirect drivers; 3, specific guidance of direct relevance to the indirect driver.
Total scores for Ramsar documents reflecting their relevance to agriculture and the direct and indirect drivers of adverse change in wetlands. Categories reflect different aspects of possible management and policy responses. Values are totals of the scores assigned to all documents reviewed as shown in Table 1. (0, no guidance; 1, limited to recognition of issues; 2, specific guidance but not directly relevant to indirect drivers; 3, specific guidance of direct relevance to the indirect driver).
A reading of the agriculture-related resolutions and guidance indicates that, in most instances, they recognise the importance of the direct drivers or impacts, but provide only very broad and high-level suggestions on responses to address impacts. Furthermore, the analysis presented in Table 1 clearly indicates that the Ramsar resolutions and ecommendations do not map comprehensively onto the agricultural sector-related indirect drivers. Three of the Ramsar-resolution categories address a low number of drivers, most of which showed median scores of zero (integrated planning, communication, education, participation and awareness, and policy and regulation). None of the resolutions and recommendations presents specific guidance on the ways in which drivers could be addressed. However, the available body of work has building blocks for addressing indirect drivers related to knowledge systems, cultural and relational attributes, economic instruments, policy, legal and regulatory instruments, and communication and participation. However, the resolutions and recommendations fall short in terms of responding to food preferences and consumption, globalisation, and building an environment that enables sound responses to the key and, at times, diffuse issues.
Approaches or concepts that bridge agriculture and wetlands, such as multi-functional landscapes, multi-functional agroecosystems and rebalancing ecosystem services, provide an opportunity for integrating the wetland and agricultural sectors, yet there is little detail on the specific meaning of these concepts or the context in which these are applied to address the drivers. There are calls for (1) integrated planning and management in which agriculture–wetland interactions are recognised as a key element, (2) integrated water resource management encompassing wetlands and all sectors that might influence them, (3) more explicit inclusion of wetlands in sectoral (including agriculture) policy and planning, (4) consideration of sectoral interlinkages while setting up national wetlands committees (including representation from agriculture sector), and (5) consideration of specific sectors while messaging about wetland values, or designing communication, education, participation and awareness programs. A limitation is that much of this guidance is generic and focused on creating an enabling environment for integrated planning (and thus largely catering to the indirect drivers) and rarely leads to specific actions for addressing the adverse direct drivers.
A second limitation is that most of the resolutions and guidance take a generic view of the agricultural sector, with limited consideration of types of agriculture and scale of practice. There is some very limited specificity around biofuels, rice paddies and peatlands. Reasons for the lack of specificity could be (1) the large number of wetland types and the complexity of wetland systems, (2) the wide range of agricultural systems (ranging from low-intensity, mixed farming, smallholder subsistence to large-scale, high-intensity, monoculture commercial agriculture), and (3) the fact that agriculture–wetland interactions and the implications for both the wetlands and people vary depending on a wide range of biophysical and socio-economic factors (many of which are not influenced by agriculture). This makes generalisation very difficult. Guidance beyond generic statements of broad intent has to be tailored to site-specific conditions, which are usually found only in the reports of Ramsar Advisory Missions that are targeted at individual sites (Gardner et al. 2018).
Ultimately, safeguarding wetlands comes down to ensuring that agricultural practices, such as integrated pest management and soil and water conservation measures, are widely implemented in ways that are tailored to specific biophysical and socio-economic conditions. Currently, important in the global dialogue on agriculture, which recognises the need and urgency for transformation of agriculture in the context of sustainable development, but missing from the Ramsar suite of resolutions is a reference to a set of additional issues being addressed in agricultural settings. These include nutrition-sensitive agriculture (Bryan et al. 2019; Kaminski et al. 2022), agroecology (Rijsberman and de Silva 2006; Yadav et al. 2021), regenerative agriculture (Lal 2020), nature-positive agriculture (Lal 2023), landscape management and sustainable agriculture intensification (Racoviceanu et al. 2023).
A conclusion from these considerations is that to ensure the wise use of wetlands, it is necessary to make changes to a range of agricultural practices as they affect wetlands. This is evident from the reporting of the analyses conducted through the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Finlayson and D’Cruz 2005; Finlayson et al. 2005) and the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (Falkenmark et al. 2007; Molden 2007), both of which incorporated input from the Convention’s Scientific and Technical Review Panel.
Despite the fact that agriculture has long been recognised as a driver of wetland loss and degradation, Ramsar guidance regarding agriculture has largely been superficial, i.e. general in nature and encouraging outcomes or programs without providing detailed advice. This is evident when considering the resolutions that have specifically addressed agriculture (Table 2). Indeed, even Resolution XIII.19 on sustainable agriculture in wetlands (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2018b, p. 4) provides only general statements encouraging Contracting Parties to promote such things as agroecological practices that favour sustainable food and agricultural systems and to consider adopting ‘incentive schemes’ that take into account ‘sustainable use of natural resources, conservation of biological diversity and prevention of the degradation of ecosystems related to wetlands’. Rather than providing guidance, the resolution refers the matter back to the Contracting Parties, which are encouraged ‘to support and develop guidance tools for the co-management of wetlands’.
Resolution | Key points | Level of guidance | |
|---|---|---|---|
XIII.19: sustainable agriculture (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2018b ) |
| Superficial | |
XIII.13: restoration of degraded peatlands (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2018d ) |
| Detailed technical guidance is contained in Ramsar Briefing Note 11 Practical peatland restoration (Joosten 2021a ) and Ramsar Technical Report 11 on Global guidelines for peatland rewetting and restoration (Joosten 2021b ) | |
XI.15: rice paddies and pest control (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2012) |
| Superficial, although targeted at a specific farming system | |
X.25: wetlands and biofuels (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2008b ) |
| Superficial | |
IX.23 and X.21: highly pathogenic avian influenza (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2005b , 2008c ) |
| Detailed | |
VIII.34: agriculture, wetlands and water resource management (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2002a ) |
| Superficial | |
VII,15 and VIII.23: incentive measures (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 1999, 2002b ) |
| Uncertain: online resource kit is no longer available and not archived | |
VI.14: toxic chemicals (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 1996) |
| None |
Detailed guidance in resolutions expressly directed at the agricultural sector is contained only in Resolution X.21, which discusses poultry production and the continued spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2008d). Technical documents produced through the Convention’s Scientific and Technical Review Panel can be another source of guidance, including, for example, comprehensive guidelines on rewetting and restoring agricultural peatlands (Joosten 2021a, 2021b). Moreover, specific guidance regarding agricultural practices occurs on occasion at the site level through Ramsar Advisory Missions (RAMs), covering a range of challenges. These include, for example: RAM 95 to Doñana National Park, Spain, calling for the closure of illegally irrigated farmland and financial support for sustainable agriculture (Acreman et al. 2021); RAM 85 to Berbak National Park, Indonesia, providing recommendations regarding peatland burning (Silvius et al. 2018); RAM 83 to Kilombero Valley Floodplain, Tanzania, discussing the need for cross-sectoral wetland management (Wilson et al. 2017); and RAM 50 to Chilika Lake, India, providing recommendations regarding aquaculture (Finlayson et al. 2001). Such detailed contextual guidance is limited by financial constraints and the requirement that a Contracting Party to the Convention must formally request the RAM through its administrative authorities (Gardner et al. 2018).
More common is general or broader guidance that can be applicable to the agricultural context. Examples include guidance on environmental-impact assessments (Ramsar Convention Secretariat 2010b) that is relevant to proposed agricultural activities that would result in wetland losses or degradation. Similarly, guidance on river basin management (Ramsar Convention Secretariat 2010c) and environmental flows (Ramsar Convention Secretariat 2010d), while directed towards the water sector, is pertinent to water use by farmers. Furthermore, general guidelines for avoiding, mitigating and compensating for wetland losses provide an approach to examine proposed agricultural activities that could adversely affect wetlands (Gardner et al. 2012). Although it is unclear to what extent these general guidance documents have actually been used in an agricultural context, the ‘avoid–mitigate–compensate’ construct provides a useful approach to consider gaps in agriculture-specific guidance, as outlined below.
Avoiding wetland impacts
Government subsidies to drain and convert wetlands for agricultural purposes were a concern prior to the Ramsar Convention’s adoption. However, governments have long been reluctant to address the issue. Indeed, an initial draft of the Convention proposed prohibiting Contracting Parties from subsidising wetland drainage and modification, but that provision was not included in the final text (Stroud et al. 2021). At COP 2 in 1984, an observer from the European Environmental Bureau stated that the European Common Agricultural Policy should be modified to not cause drainage of valuable wetlands (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 1984). More recently, the COP deleted explicit references to subsidies from the draft version of Resolution XIII.19 (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2018c, p. 4). The draft had encouraged ‘Contracting Parties to review subsidies and government instruments in support of agricultural practices and assess their effect on wetlands and their sustainability, including the integrity of wetlands and long-term impact upon the sustainability of local livelihoods’, as well as requesting the Secretariat to advise decision-makers and policy-makers ‘on withdrawing subsidies that endanger wetlands’. Instead, the text was changed to vaguely encourage ‘Contracting Parties to review and, if appropriate, improve their respective programmes and policies in support of agricultural production, and to assess their effects on wetlands and their sustainability, including on the integrity of wetlands and the long-term impact upon the sustainability of local livelihoods’ (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2018b, p. 4). Although the issue of subsidies remains politically sensitive (King et al. 2021), analysis on a country-by-country basis on eliminating perverse incentives to drain and convert wetlands is urgently needed.
Mitigating wetland impacts
Robertson et al. (2022a, p. 14), when considering the impacts of agriculture on wetlands recommended ‘sharing knowledge to enhance the adoption of integrated agricultural practices, including agroecology … paludiculture and other low input farming systems’. Similarly, the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) suggested strengthening existing diversified farming systems as a policy response to protect pollinators (Potts et al. 2016). Ramsar has detailed guidance on paludiculture (Joosten 2021a, 2021b), and it has highlighted examples of agroecology, such as in Marais Audomarois, France (Robertson et al. 2022a). One aspect of low-input farming systems involves the reduction of fertiliser and pesticide use. Even though nutrient runoff has been recognised as a primary contributor to degraded water quality, Ramsar has provided no direct guidance on fertiliser use and wetlands. Nor has the Convention delved into specific guidance regarding pesticides and wetlands beyond generalities in Resolution X.31 on rice paddies (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2008d) and Resolution XIII.19 on agriculture (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2018b). At a minimum, the Ramsar Convention could highlight and build on currently available guidance, such as that for minimising the use of pesticides in agriculture (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2021), and for addressing water pollution from agriculture (Mateo-Sagasta et al. 2017).
Compensating for wetland impacts
Although Ramsar has general guidance on restoration (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2002c; Herb and Finlayson 2023) and technical guidance on restoration regarding peatlands (Joosten 2021a, 2021b), a gap exists with respect to guidance on financial incentives. The importance of such measures is highlighted in Robertson et al. (2022a, p. 15), which recognises ‘financial mechanisms to promote sustainable practices and wetland wise use restoration efforts/programmes’ and in Potts et al. (2016) and Rice et al. (2018), which call for investing in ecological infrastructure. Ramsar has encouraged such financial incentive mechanisms (where appropriate), and, in 2002 Resolution VIII.23 (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2002b), pointed to guidance in the form of an online resource toolkit. Regrettably, the toolkit is no longer available, and it does not appear to have been archived.
Nevertheless, examples of incentive approaches abound. The Global Wetland Outlook (Gardner and Finlayson 2018) noted the success of the USA’s Wetlands Reserve Program where cost-sharing funds are provided to farmers for restoration efforts (Fennessy and Craft 2011). Robertson et al. (2022a) offered an example in New Zealand where agricultural areas adjacent to Waituna Lagoon were purchased to ‘support catchment-wide nutrient reduction’. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy for 2023–27 contemplates that 25% of the budget will be devoted to eco-schemes with enhanced conditionality to protect wetlands (https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/cap-overview/cap-glance_en#cap202327, accessed 24 October 2023). Specific guidance on lessons learned from these and other experiences would be useful for other Contracting Parties.
Discussion
The review of the guidance produced by the Ramsar Convention indicates a partial framing of the issue and responses related to the wise use of wetlands. In particular, this applies to the most significant driver of wetland degradation, namely agriculture, despite the importance of agriculture as a driver of adverse change being identified at the outset of the Convention in 1971 (Carp 1971; Stroud et al. 2021) and in subsequent assessments (Finlayson et al. 2005; Falkenmark et al. 2007). This does not mean that the Convention has ignored agriculture; it has been specifically addressed on several occasions (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2018b; Robertson et al. 2022a) and, as noted above, representatives of the Convention have participated in global assessments that have addressed the impacts of agriculture on wetlands. However, in most instances where the Convention has considered agriculture, it has been framed as a wetland conservation issue. Looking at wetland status and trends is needed; however, by itself, it is not enough; it is important to also look further at the drivers and responses to the increasingly well-documented trends.
The most recent consideration of agriculture–wetland interactions by the Convention presents a significant conceptual advance in the framing of wetland–agriculture interactions within the Convention (Robertson et al. 2022b; van Dam et al. 2023). Unlike the past treatment of agriculture as a monolithic single sector, an ‘agriculture systems’ view was taken, distinguishing nine different types of agriculture on the basis of agricultural practices and the level of resource use. Robertson et al. (2022b) further stressed the context specificity of agriculture–wetland interactions, dependent, at the very least, on the location of agriculture within the catchment, type of agricultural systems and practices, and the types of wetland affected.
This framing is important for a meaningful dialogue and possible collaboration between wetlands and the agriculture sector, because it allows the former to appreciate the diversity of agricultural systems and the latter to appreciate the diversity of wetlands and the ways they are interlinked with agricultural systems in a landscape. This could include a specific emphasis on the ‘maintenance of the ecological character’ of wetlands as an important precondition for sustainable agriculture (both within and upstream of wetlands) and active participation in efforts to adapt both the ongoing management of agricultural systems and the restoration of wetlands and riverine systems. The costly and complex efforts underway in the Murray–Darling Basin in Australia (Alexandra and Rickards 2021) provide an example of efforts to promote the wise use of wetlands with multiple benefits for human communities, although it purportedly has not explicitly supported the implementation of guidance provided by the Convention for managing Ramsar sites (Lyons et al. 2022). Similarly, Wood et al. (2013) argued for a more ‘people-focused’ approach to wetland management in Africa and explicit recognition of the important role that wetland agriculture has to play in supporting and developing livelihoods across the continent.
Despite these shifts, we contend that within the Convention, the overall framing of wetland–agriculture interactions is still largely focused on concerns about the way in which agriculture has been undertaken, and the negative effects over centuries on wetlands, such as the extensive drainage and infilling that occurred across large parts of North America and Europe (Fluet-Chouinard et al. 2023) and the diversion of water away from rivers for irrigated agriculture (Boelee et al. 2013). These issues are well documented, as are the consequent shifts in ecosystem services from regulating services to provisioning services (Gordon et al. 2010), although it is questionable how far they influence decisions about agriculture, including water management.
Further, the approach taken through the Convention presents a partial view of ‘food systems’ of which ‘agricultural systems’ form only a part. ‘Food systems’ encompass ‘all the elements and activities related to producing and consuming food, as well as their effects, including economic, health, and environmental outcomes’ (see https://www.oecd.org/food-systems/understanding/triple-challengeaccessed/, accessed 24 October 2023). Wetlands degradation and loss can render food systems vulnerable in multiple ways; direct linkages include impacts on agricultural inputs (such as availability of water for irrigation), or indirect ones that expose the entire agri–food system to increased risks of extreme events because the buffering role of wetlands is compromised, or loss of other wetland ecosystem services on which other actors may depend. We argue that the framing of wetland–agriculture interactions needs to be around ‘wetlands systems’ as embedded within the wider ‘agri–food systems’, thus providing a wider set of intervention points than is currently being conceived within Ramsar. The interactions between the two can be in terms of ‘technological’ aspects (related to food production, aggregation, processing, distribution and consumption), social aspects (such as access to natural resources, knowledge systems, and financing), and institutions and governance aspects (such as norms, policies, laws and regulation).
The IPBES Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Díaz et al. 2019) calls for urgent and concerted efforts to foster transformative change and reverse the direct and indirect drivers of the decline and loss of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people. The assessment underlines that merely scaling up sustainability initiatives will be insufficient to address transformative change; rather, work is required across priority intervention points (or leverage points; see Díaz et al. 2019 for details). The leverage-point perspective in particular calls for increased focus on indirect drivers (including formal and informal institutions, such as norms, values, rules and governance systems, demographic and sociocultural factors, and economic and technological factors), which propel the direct drivers. These considerations can be spread across a range of agricultural practices and how these could be transformed and influence different aspects of wetland ecological character and wise use.
Going forward, the Ramsar constituency could benefit from working on responses aligned with the levers of a system-wide transformation of wetland–agriculture interactions and recognising the different outcomes that can occur when the focus shifts along a range of agricultural practices. Gordon et al. (2010) expressed the impacts of more contemporary agricultural practices as leading to a change in the balance of ecosystem services towards provisioning services and away from regulatory and cultural services, bearing in mind that food production in itself is a critical service. Falkenmark et al. (2007) recognised the value of increased food production as agriculture and associated water management had enabled, although placed this within a context of questioning whether the balance had gone too far away from the multiple services that were being diminished as food production expanded. A rethinking of the wetland–agriculture interactions that nowadays dominate large parts of the land would provide, at the least, opportunities for more strategic use of communication and education tools to raise awareness and bring about affirmative changes in individual and societal attitudes in favour of sustainable agriculture–wetland interactions.
The current impetus for ‘agriculture transformation’ in response to food and water issues may be a significant window of opportunity for the Convention to more fully address wetland–agriculture interactions. This could include identifying ‘shared opportunities and risks’ and engagement with key-sector champions to move these from the sidelines to the centre of Convention processes. This may be seen as moving the Convention away from its central purposes (Bridgewater and Kim 2021), but we contend that it is in line with the basic principles and emphases of the Convention at the outset (Stroud et al. 2021) and over the past few decades where intersectoral and integrated approaches have been encouraged (Kumar et al. 2020, 2023; Gardner et al. 2023b).
The above topics have, to some extent, been addressed within the efforts undertaken through the Ramsar Convention or by its involvement in global environmental initiatives and for some time. Many of these efforts have not been formally reported in the published literature, having occurred at a local level and through informal efforts. Some exceptions are evident across recent decades, including in the Mediterranean Basin (Anon. 1992; Perennou et al. 2012) and the Murray–Darling Basin in south-eastern Australia (Holland et al. 2015; Kirsch et al. 2022) as regional examples, and through global assessments (Finlayson et al. 2005; Molden 2007; Potts et al. 2016). The uptake and advancement of these efforts through the Convention, as noted above, have been uneven and incomplete, including the unfulfilled effort to address the questions about wetlands and agriculture raised by the Convention’s Scientific and Technical Review Panel in 2007 (see the section ‘Questions about the interactions between agriculture and wetlands’ in the Supplementary material). Addressing the issues behind the inconsistency and uneven nature of past efforts may provide a platform for the transformative efforts that have been outlined above.
Conclusions and recommendations
The finding that Ramsar resolutions and recommendations (collectively referred to as decisions) do not adequately address the agriculture-related indirect drivers is not surprising. In fact, similar conclusions have been arrived at by previous assessments, notably in the Wetlands and Water Synthesis of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (Finlayson et al. 2005). More recently, the IPBES has called for increased attention to working with indirect drivers of adverse change, noting that merely upscaling sustainability solutions will be insufficient to address the adverse trends and, thus, the urgent need to foster system-wide transformative change (Díaz et al. 2019). We contend that additional resolutions and recommendations may be insufficient to address continuing wetland loss and degradation; a focus on the means of implementation, especially effective on-ground measures, is needed.
On the basis of the above commentary about how the Ramsar Convention has addressed the interactions between agriculture (or agri–food systems), we make the following four conclusions to assist with efforts to close the driver–response loop for halting and reversing wetland degradation and loss from agriculture:
Explore appropriate opportunities, such as those provided through United Nations initiatives, with the agriculture sector on agricultural systems that are aligned with wetland wise use and creating enabling environments for the same;
Ensure that resolutions agreed through the Convention are more specific on key drivers of adverse change in wetlands and on possible responses, such as the reduction of subsidies for agriculture that lead to wetland degradation;
Deepen and broaden our understanding of the direct and indirect drivers rooted in the agriculture sector, which lead to adverse change in wetlands, including those that compromise wetland ecological character and wise use as promoted through the Convention; and
Enhance our ability to influence indirect drivers through better use of communication, education, awareness, capacity development and behavioural change tools.
In making these recommendations, we recognise that the Convention has not, when addressing wetland–agriculture interactions, distinguished among countries with different levels of economic development or food insecurity. Such issues have been addressed in documents provided by advisors to the Convention (e.g. see Molden 2007; Boelee et al. 2013), among others, but have not been reflected in the specific decisions taken by the Convention when addressing wetland–agriculture interactions.
Agriculture should be an engine for stability, food and nutrition security, poverty reduction and economic growth and able to withstand increasing stresses such as those from climate change, land and water degradation, and the loss of biodiversity that undermines productivity and makes farming more difficult. At a global scale, many contemporary agricultural practices are major contributors to the transgression of planetary boundaries. Moving towards agricultural practices that integrate the principles of wetland sustainable development (wise use) will create linkages with the agri–food systems that regenerate rather than degrade wetlands in agricultural landscapes.
Data availability
The data that support this study are available in the article and the accompanying online supplementary material and accessible through the web site of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
Conflicts of interest
Siobhan Fennessy, Ritesh Kumar and Max Finlayson are editors for Marine and Freshwater Research but did not at any stage have access to this manuscript while in peer review, as is standard practice when handling manuscripts submitted by an editor to this Journal. Marine and Freshwater Research encourages its editors to publish in the Journal and they are kept totally separate from the decision-making processes for their manuscripts. The authors declare that they have no other conflicts of interest.
Declaration of funding
Funding of the travel to participate in writing sessions to prepare this paper was provided through Charles Sturt University.
Acknowledgements
The authors appreciate the wisdom and guidance of colleagues involved in the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, including those from the Scientific and Technical Review Panel. Collectively, the authors have been involved in the Convention’s Scientific and Technical Review Panel, as representatives of the Convention’s international organisation partners or observer organisations.
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