Wetlands

The conservation of the Freshwater Pearl Mussel, Atlantic Salmon and Brown Trout is essential for maintaining the health and resilience of river ecosystems. Their interconnected survival depends on a landscape-scale approach that restores both species and habitats.

Shorebirds and Père David’s Deer play essential roles in maintaining and restoring coastal wetland ecosystems. Their combined impacts provide key ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, sediment stabilization, and improved water quality.

Elephants, Hippos, Horses, Bovines, Beavers, Water Buffalo and other large herbivores all play crucial roles in their environment and provide rich areas that support a variety of other species. ARK demonstrates the significant ecological impacts of large terrestrial herbivores on wetland habitats.

The 170-hectare Bamff Wildland, comprising fields, woodlands, and extensive beaver-engineered wetlands, adopts a ‘catalysed rewilding’ approach. This method involves minimal interventions, such as native tree planting and invasive species control, to encourage a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Crocodylians are among the largest predators in their habitats and act as ecosystem engineers, modifying habitats by constructing dens, holes, and mound nests. Their presence in ecosystems like the Florida Everglades serves as a barometer for water management and hydrological functions, highlighting their potential as ecosystem health indicators.

The Central Apennines in Italy host diverse aquatic ecosystems, home to the endangered White-Clawed Crayfish, a key species that plays a vital role in maintaining water quality and supporting food webs. Rewilding Apennines has taken action to restore the species through breeding centres and habitat rehabilitation.

The Ganges River basin hosts diverse wetlands vital for biodiversity, including the culturally significant but vulnerable Sarus Crane, which depends on both natural and man-made wetlands. The Sarus Crane serves as a key indicator of wetland health as they provide crucial ecosystem services, including habitat enhancement, nutrient cycling, and biodiversity support.

Despite threats from habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change, protected areas like the National Chambal Sanctuary are crucial for the ongoing health of India’s diverse ecosystems, ensuring the survival of both aquatic and semi-aquatic species.

In the Ibera Wetlands, the reintroduction of key species like Jaguars help control the Capybara population and restore natural trophic cascades that balance ecosystem dynamics. Species such as Caimans, Giant River Otters, Collared Peccaries and Marsh Deer play crucial roles in nutrient cycling and ecosystem engineering, maintaining balance and enhancing biodiversity through their natural behaviours.

The Danube Delta is one of the most crucial habitats for wetland wildlife on the continent. Rewilding efforts emphasise natural grazing systems, highlighting the significant impact of diverse herbivore populations, such as Ukrainian Grey Cattle and Hutsul Horses, on ecological restoration.

Wildlife in U Minh, such as Waterbirds, Sunda Pangolins, Otters, Civets, Turtles and Long-Tailed Macaques play significant roles as ecosystem engineers, influencing habitat structure, nutrient cycling, and seed dispersal. Rewilding and conservation efforts in the U Minh Wetlands have been actively pursued and the ecosystem is gradually recuperating.

In the Okavango Delta, hippos, elephants and termites act as ecosystem engineers, shaping how water moves between channels, lagoons and floodplains. Their combined actions sustain a dynamic equilibrium between sediment and flow that keeps this vast wetland alive.

West Africa’s only sirenians, manatees and dugongs, shape aquatic ecosystems through grazing, seed dispersal and nutrient cycling. Their survival underpins the productivity, carbon storage, and health of the region’s coastal and freshwater systems.

Kenya’s seagrass meadows support marine biodiversity, coastal livelihoods and carbon sequestration, but overfishing and urchin overgrazing are driving a steady decline. Restoring balance between fish and urchin populations is key to reversing this trend.

One of Africa’s largest marine protected areas, Banc d’Arguin is a biodiversity hotspot hosting over two million migratory birds each year. It also shelters the endangered Mediterranean monk seal, vital to the health of the wider marine ecosystem.

Chumbe Island, the world’s first self-sustaining marine protected area, combines conservation, education and ecotourism. Its effective management and no-take reef sanctuary have brought back black-tip reef sharks and boosted fish stocks vital to Zanzibar’s fisheries.

Once a stronghold for great white sharks, False Bay has seen their near-total disappearance, removing a key stabilising force from the marine food web. Without top-down control, mid-level predators have proliferated, leaving the ecosystem less biodiverse and more vulnerable.

Two key wetland areas in Southern Africa, Banhine and Maputo National Parks, protect a rich mix of inland and coastal wetlands that shelter diverse wildlife. Ongoing rewilding efforts are restoring key species whose presence strengthens the structure, function and resilience of these ecosystems. They are prime examples of valuable, well-managed, ecologically rich wetlands.

Gorongosa shows that even heavily degraded wetlands can recover through science-led, well-funded rewilding and offer a global model for wetland recovery. With large herbivores and predators returning, vegetation regulation, nutrient cycling and predator-prey dynamics are being restored across the floodplain.

Hippos are keystone ecosystem engineers whose movements and dung sustain wetland dynamics and aquatic food chains across the Nile Basin. The Hippo Recovery Initiative is driving urgent, collaborative action to protect their populations and the livelihoods that depend on them.

Where land meets sea, these coastal ecosystems are among West Africa’s most complex and productive, shaped by species that help sustain them. The Grand Mano Master Plan addresses current challenges and promotes transboundary conservation across Sierra Leone and Liberia to protect this shared landscape.

In Tondwa Game Management Area, poaching and habitat loss have pushed species to the brink despite the region’s importance for wildlife migration and local food systems. Conserve works in partnership and with pragmatism beyond park boundaries and into the overlooked buffer zones and biodiversity corridors that communities, farms, fish depend on.