Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene January - February 2016 vol.11 no.1 | Page 16
© LIVELIhooDS FUnD
Wetlands: Providing more than
a billion livelihoods
More than a billion people depend on
wetlands for a living ! Just stop and
think about that number – and about
what a wetland actually is. The Ramsar
Convention defines a wetland as any
land area that is saturated or flooded with
water, either permanently or seasonally,
along with all beaches and shallow
coastal areas.
This definition covers all inland wetlands
such as marshes, ponds, lakes, fens,
rivers, floodplains, and swamps... as well
as the whole range of coastal wetlands
which include saltwater marshes,
estuaries, mangroves,lagoons and coral
reefs. Then we should add in all manmade wetlands such as fishponds, rice
paddies, and salt pans.
Wetlands host a diverse range of jobs,
including a few we might not normally
think of:
Rice farming
Rice, grown in wetland paddies, is the
staple diet of 3.5 billion people and
accounts for 20 % of all calories consumed
by humans.
Almost a billion households in Asia, Africa
and the Americas depend on rice growing
and processing for their main livelihoods.
Some 80 % of the world’s rice is produced
by small-scale farmers and is consumed
locally.
Fishing
The average human consumes 19 kg
of fish every year. Most commercial fish
breed and raise their young in coastal
marshes and estuaries. In addition,
more than 40 % of fish production is now
through aquaculture.
More than 660 million people depend on
fishing and aquaculture for a living.
Tourism and leisure
International tourists spent US $ 1.3 trillion
worldwide in 2013, and an estimated
half of them seek relaxation in wetland
areas, especially coastal zones.
The travel and tourism sectors support
266 million jobs, and account for 8.9 % of
the world’s employment.
Transport
Rivers and inland waterways play a vital
role in transporting goods and people
in many parts of the world. In the Amazon
basin, rivers carry 12 million passengers
and 50 million tons of freight each
year, sustaining 41 shipping companies.
www.worldwetlandsday.org
Water provision
Vast networks deliver fresh water and
remove and treat wastewater, while
employing large workforces. For example,
Bangkok’s Metropolitan Waterworks
Authority employs over 5,300 staff.
The bottled water industry delivered
over 70 billion gallons of water in 2013.
Danone sells major brands such as
Evian, Volvic, Bonafont and Mizone, and
employs more than 37,000 people in its
water businesses worldwide.
Traditional wetland product-based
livelihoods
Medicinal plants, dyes, fruits, reeds and
grasses are just a few of the wetland
products that provide jobs, especially in
developing countries.
Reeds and papyrus collected from the
Barotse floodplain wetland in Zambia are
estimated to be worth US $ 373,000 per
year to local communities.