AUTHORS: Daniela Russi – Patrick ten Brink – Andrew Farmer – Tomas Badura – David Coates – Johannes Förster – Ritesh Kumar – Nick Davidson

The TEEB initiative has demonstrated the policy usefulness of presenting evidence on the value of nature to encourage conservation and enhancement of ecosystem services.

TEEB Water and Wetlands is a report promoted by the Ramsar Convention Secretariat, with financial support from the Norwegian, Swiss and Finnish Governments and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). IEEP’s researchers were the main authors, together with experts from different institutions, including the Ramsar Secretariat, the CBD Secretariat, UNEP, UFZ, Wetlands International and IUCN.

TEEB Water and Wetlands supports the wise use of wetlands through a better understanding of ecosystem services values and benefits. The objective is to encourage additional policy momentum, business commitment, and investment in the conservation, restoration, and wise use of wetlands.

TEEB Water and Wetlands discusses the importance of water and its role in underpinning all ecosystem services. It also presents insights on the wider ecosystem services from wetlands, including their fundamental role in global and local water cycles, as well as their role in the carbon cycle through carbon capture and storage,. These ecosystem services need to be taken into account to ensure that the full benefits of nature are not overlooked and that costly development mistakes are avoided. The crucial role of water and wetlands in supporting human welfare can be analysed using a number of methodologies, including qualitative, quantitative and monetary indicators or a combination of these. The choice of the methodology should depend on the objectives, the available information, the time and budget constraints and the kind of ecosystem service to be assessed.