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Wetlands International - European Association

WI-EA

Wetlands International - European Association is an NGO advocating for the sustainable use and restoration of wetland ecosystems.

Lobbying Activity

Wetlands International urges inclusion of paludiculture in materials act

18 Dec 2025
Topic — The European Commission is consulting on the Advanced Materials Act for industrial leadership.
Message — The organization recommends recognizing paludiculture biomass applications as advanced bio-based materials to improve environmental performance. They call for policies that support production and incentives to increase industrial uptake and scale-up.123
Why — This would accelerate market growth and create profitable business models for peatland-based industries.45
Impact — Plastic manufacturers and drainage-based agricultural sectors face displacement by sustainable bio-based alternatives.67
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Response to EU’s next long-term budget (MFF) – EU funding for competitiveness

12 Nov 2025

LIFE has been one of the EUs most successful programmes, achieving measurable results for ecosystems, biodiversity, and climate action. Diluting or dismantling it would mark a historic setback for the European Green Deal and the EUs environmental commitments, undermining both Europes capacity and credibility to meet its own biodiversity and climate goals. We therefore urge that LIFE be safeguarded as a key source of dedicated funding for environmental and climate action, securing Europes continued global leadership in the field. Wetlands International Europe calls on EU institutions to reject the integration of LIFE into the ECF and as part of the EU facility and instead safeguard and strengthen LIFE as a stand-alone programme with a dedicated, ring-fenced budget within the next MFF. This is essential to ensure that Europe can continue to deliver effective, measurable, and lasting outcomes for biodiversity, ecosystems, and climate resilience. We recommend to protect the EUs environmental commitments and ensure the continued success of the LIFE Programme, we call on the European Parliament and Council to implement the following safeguards during the MFF negotiations: 1) Maintain LIFE as a standalone, dedicated instrument 2) Guarantee a dedicated, ring-fenced budget for LIFE 3) Establish strong safeguards for all nature funding 4) Treat environmental funding as an economic investment Please find attached our paper in response to the European Commissions proposal for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 20282034.
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Wetlands International urges water-conscious AI development in energy

3 Nov 2025
Topic — This consultation explores leveraging digital technologies and artificial intelligence within the energy sector.
Message — The organization requests that AI deployment follows water protection rules to improve resource governance. They stress that digital progress should not compromise the resilience of water systems.12
Why — Stricter water accounting would protect the wetland ecosystems the organization works to preserve.3
Impact — Tech developers could see their projects restricted by environmental limits on AI water consumption.4
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Response to European climate resilience and risk management law

1 Sept 2025

EU legislation is progressing in the right direction to address climate change, as confirmed by the European Court of Auditors (CoA2024). Living Rivers Europe has provided extensive advice, available on our website, on improving implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Water Resilience Strategy (WRS). To properly address the problems this initiative targets, two elements are essential and currently missing from the EU environmental acquis: 1) protecting nature-based adaptation measures from deterioration, and 2) ensuring full implementation of existing law while prohibiting rollbacks, exemptions, and loopholes. I. Non-deterioration of restored ecosystems as a foundation for climate resilience Climate resilience and risk management depend on ecosystems that are already healthy. Without stable environmental conditions, human-made adaptations become stranded assets and stopgaps. Nature-based Solutions (NbS, including forests, wetlands, reefs, and healthy soils) act as self-adjusting climate infrastructure, evolving with changing conditions unlike static engineering solutions. Protecting restored ecosystems preserves this adaptive capacity, making resilience cost-effective and long-lasting. The Nature Restoration Regulation sets the objective of continuous, long-term recovery of resilient ecosystems to support EU climate mitigation and adaptation goals. The WRS similarly recognizes NbS as a priority. Yet non-deterioration is not fully guaranteed by EU law as it currently stands. Achieving the one health approach and just resilience outlined in the call for an Impact Assessment requires prioritizing NbS, funding restoration adequately, and ensuring restored ecosystems are protected from deterioration. II. Halting environmental rollback as the basis of climate action The call for an Impact Assessment identifies barriers such as funding gaps (see p.25 WFD briefing atattched), short-termism, weak governance, vested interests, and price signals that fail to reflect climate risks (see p.21). Deregulation is the cause, not the solution. Reducing WFD ambition is unjustified: most Member States will miss GES targets by 2027, and a 25 billion funding gap is the true obstacle. CoA2024 highlights the high costs of non-action, showing that reducing targets is far less rational than funding adaptation properly. Similarly, contradictory pressures, such as higher irrigation demand vs. reduced water useare handled by the WRS by swapping a 10% abstraction reduction for a 10% efficiency increase, thus weakening ambition. Deregulation creates reactive cycles, wastes resources, shortens adaptation lead time, and erodes trust, undermining collective long-term action. NbS investments only deliver returns if legally safeguarded. Environmental rollback and ecosystem deterioration constitute a human rights violation through omission, knowingly increasing climate exposure, undermining fundamental rights, and breaching governmental duty of care. Maladaptation is defined by the CoA2024 as adaptation that increases vulnerability. This is exactly what rollback produces, at best it is maladaptive, at worst catastrophic.
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Meeting with Costas Kadis (Commissioner) and

17 Jul 2025 · European Ocean Pact - Water Resilience Strategy

Meeting with Jessika Roswall (Commissioner) and

15 Jul 2025 · Exchange of views on the Common Agriculture Policy, the Water Resilience Strategy and simplification.

Meeting with Patrick Child (Deputy Director-General Environment) and

3 Jun 2025 · Exchange of views on LIFE

Meeting with Hildegard Bentele (Member of the European Parliament) and Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau e.V. and Hansgrohe

14 May 2025 · Water Policy

Meeting with Maxi Espeter (Cabinet of Commissioner Christophe Hansen) and European Environmental Bureau

18 Mar 2025 · EEB and Wetlands International presented on the water resilience strategy

Meeting with Astrid Dentler (Cabinet of Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra) and European Environmental Bureau and THE NATURE CONSERVANCY IN EUROPE gemeinnützige GmbH

17 Mar 2025 · Exchange of views on Water and Climate Resilience Strategies

Response to European Water Resilience Strategy

4 Mar 2025

Wetlands International Europe welcomes the initiative of the European Commission for a European Water Resilience Strategy. Healthy landscape scale wetland systems such as lakes, peatlands, river floodplains, and upper catchment sponges are essential for improving water resilience and achieving multiple policy objectives. Wetlands are proven, nature-based solutions (NBS) that limit floods, maintain water supplies in droughts, filter pollutants, replenish underground water reserves and sustain freshwater biodiversity. Despite their importance, wetlands continue to be over-exploited, degraded and destroyed, undermining Europes climate and water resilience; up to 80% have been lost in the last 100 years, a trend which continues. This is directly related to the ongoing cycle of catastrophic droughts and floods in Europe in recent years such as those in the Ardennes/Eifel that have cost lives and billions of euros. As Europe experiences the impacts of the climate crisis through water and more frequent and intense droughts and floods, the case for rapidly restoring wetlands and freshwater ecosystems has never been more urgent. Our own research provides clear evidence of the multi-benefits of restoring the water retention capacity of soils, including: Peer-reviewed research in 2024 in the online journal Water https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/16/5/733 based on modelling in the upper catchments Eifel-Ardennes mountains, the epicentre of the devastating floods in July 2021, that found: -Flood peak reduction up to 30% at local scale (2% international) -20% higher baseflows in periods of low water -Substantial reductions Nitrogen & Phosphate pollution Results from a 2025 catchment study in the Toledo region of Spain that found many possibilities for nature-based solutions to enhance flood resilience and water retention in a drought-prone region that suffered over 300 million euros in flood damages in 2023. https://europe.wetlands.org/natural-water-retention-in-the-spanish-ramabujas-stream-catchment/ Our member Natuurpunt in Flanders, Belgium demonstrated the benefits nature restoration in the Kalmthout Heath where peatlands restoration replenishes up to 930,000 m³ of water annually in a region of increasing water stress, corresponding to the annual water consumption of over 21,000 people, with a strong return on investment. https://environment.ec.europa.eu/news/restoring-nature-enhance-water-management-and-retention-2024-12-04_en Despite the explicit recognition in the EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change that NBS are essential, more EU level action at landscape scale and funding is needed to ensure that wetlands contribute meaningfully to resilience. Financing is a significant barrier to the widespread adoption of water resilient landscapes, and it is imperative that the EU develop additional financing instruments to support natural infrastructure, for instance through a Sponge Facility. Funding to top up incentives that enhance water resilience in landscapes, along with innovation in land governance and local stakeholder participation is key. In addition, the following measures are essential to ensuring water resilience in the EC's future work programmes, multiannual programming and policy proposals: Deliver the Green Deal using the NRRs National Restoration Plans to ensure synergies between water, nature and climate policy to enhance nature-based adaptation. Set legally binding water and climate resilience targets with requirements for Natural Water Reserves to protect water supplies and their catchments in water-stressed areas. Ensure adequate financing through mechanisms such as a EU Sponge Facility. Strengthen enforcement of the Water Framework Directive. Climate Adaptation Proofing of all policies. Elimination of harmful subsidies, including the continued draining of wetlands. Support the establishment of a new Global Gateway Flagship: EU Wetland Partnerships.
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Meeting with Suvi Leinonen (Cabinet of Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen)

12 Jul 2024 · Greendeal and wetlands

Response to Environmental Implementation Review 2025

5 Jul 2024

The European Green Deal and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 offer opportunities to address the interlinked climate & biodiversity crises more effectively.However, this cannot be achieved without better implementation, enforcement and integration between the EUs nature, energy and water laws. We are concerned about the EU's capacity to secure a water resilient future due to a perpetual non-compliance with the EU environmental legal aquis. With 3 years left, the objectives of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) to achieve a Good Ecological Status (GES) are all but impossible. We observe with rising concern how most Member States have failed to put forward ambitious plans and the needed investments to meet the targets. Due to the lack of action, they are now increasing their push for exceptions and derogations, seen most notably this year with the revision of the Priority Substances List - which not only has pushed back compliance to 2039 and 2051, but has also acted ultra vires of its mandate, prying open the definition of non-deterioration, and forgoing the due process of obtaining a General Approach before entering Trialogue. The current level of integration and ambition reflected under the WFD also makes it unlikely to contribute to the objectives of the European Green Deal or the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 in terms of the improved conservation status of species and habitats. Even more concerning is that the widespread use of exemptions and implementation gaps which will lead to further deterioration. Fundamental improvements are needed to deliver any relevant targets by 2030, 2040 and 2050. In addition to the gaps in existing implementation, we observe that environmental objectives are being undermined by new legislation and highlight how the revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED) makes the achievement of the old (Bird & Habitats Directives) and new (Nature Restoration Law) EU biodiversity legislation even harder to achieve. The RED revision pushes for an explosion of renewable energy, essentially allowing Member States to forgo Environmental Impact Assessments to grant licenses. Since the EC has indicated that the main (and only) procedural guarantee that environmental interests wont be sacrificed is through the spatial planning of Acceleration Areas, we ask the EC to safeguard this process so that it ensures non-deterioration. We ask for: 1. IMPLEMENTATION & ENFORCEMENT: A push for compliance with existing environmental obligations, most notably the GES 2027 goal (WFD), the Favourable Conservation Status goal (HD) and the 30% by 30% (+10% strict protection) (NRL) by means such as infringement procedures. Further erosions to the named legislation (such as the definition of non-deterioration, or the reopening of the annexes of the Habitats Directive) cannot coexist with the objectives of these texts, since the required reporting shows that environmental indicators have not improved enough to warrant more lax criteria. 2. INTEGRATION: To better integrate nature conservation and water legislation, we offer the recommendations contained in our report (atatched). 3. TRANSBOUNDARY COOPERATION: Environmental damages are often by nature transboundary, so addressing them must reflect this fact. Many shared habitats, such as river basins require a coordinated approach between Member States, a fact which is not materializing effectively in practice since these shared basins have separate River Basin Management Plans (e.g., those between Portugal and Spain which are elaborated completely independently from each other). 4. DEDICATED FUNDING: A dedicated biodiversity conservation and restoration fund in the next MFF (Multiannual Financial Framework); strengthening biodiversity mainstreaming through all EU funding programmes; and, preventing biodiversity-damaging investments financed through EU funds.
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Response to Managing EU climate risks

12 Jan 2024

Wetlands International Europe welcomes the initiative of the European Commission to improve preparedness for climate-related risks in the EU. Healthy landscape scale wetland systems such as lakes, peatlands, river floodplains, coasts, deltas are climate superheroes. They are nature-based solutions (NBS) that limit floods, maintain water supplies in droughts, manage the nutrients in soil, replenish underground water reserves and sustain freshwater biodiversity. They also hold huge amounts of carbon often many times more than forests. Healthy wetlands are fundamental for climate and socio-economic resilience, reducing both climate change and vulnerability to its impacts. They must be front and centre in the EUs Green Deal ambitions to hold carbon and water in the ground, create food and energy security, enhance stability and peace, reverse nature loss and drive sustainable development. Despite their importance, wetlands have been over-exploited, degraded and destroyed for decades, undermining Europes climate and water resilience; up to 80% have been lost in the last 100 years, a trend which continues. This is directly related to major catastrophic floods in Europe in recent years such as those in the Ardennes/Eifel that have cost lives and billions of Euros. As Europe experiences the impacts of the climate crisis through water and more frequent and intense droughts and floods the case for rapidly restoring wetlands and freshwater ecosystems has never been more urgent. Despite the explicit recognition in the EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change that NBS are essential, more EU level action at landscape scale and funding is needed to ensure that wetlands contribute meaningfully to resilience. Financing is a significant barrier to the widespread adoption of NBS, and it is imperative that the EU develop additional financing instruments to support natural infrastructure as critical infrastructure to bolster climate and water resilience, for instance through a Sponge Facility. Examples from North America can inform these efforts. Under law, in the state of California, watersheds are recognised as integral components of Californias water infrastructure, making freshwater ecosystems such as streams and meadows eligible for public works funding and billions of dollars to restore watersheds and rivers. In 2023, California also designated aquifers as natural infrastructure, making them eligible for infrastructure funding to bolster groundwater recharge and wetland restoration. In 2021, Canada adopted a $200 million Natural Infrastructure Fund to build resilience to climate change by supporting projects that use natural or hybrid approaches to protect and restore the natural environment. Financing to support innovation in land governance and local stakeholder participation is key. Multistakeholder landscape scale partnerships and governance are needed to catalyse visioning, planning and mobilisation of impact investment. In addition, the following measures are essential to addressing climate risks and ensuring climate resilience in the European Commission's future work programmes, multiannual programming and policy proposals: A fully implemented Green Deal, including adoption of the Nature Restoration Law, using the National Restoration Plans to enhance nature-based adaptation. A new Water and Climate Resilience Law setting requirements for Natural Water Reserves to protect water supplies and their catchments in water-stressed areas. A framework for sectoral water efficiency and abstraction targets at basin level, covering all water users. Full enforcement of the Water Framework Directive. Climate Adaptation Proofing of all new legislative and non-legislative acts. Elimination of harmful subsidies, including the continued draining of wetlands. Support the global Freshwater Challenge to restore 300,000 km of degraded rivers and 350 million hectares of degraded wetlands by 2030, and conserve intact freshwater ecosystems
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Meeting with Manuela Ripa (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

21 Nov 2023 · Soil monitoring and resilience directive

Meeting with Silvia Modig (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

6 Nov 2023 · Soil Monitoring Law (staff level)

Meeting with Maria Noichl (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur for opinion)

6 Nov 2023 · Soil health

Meeting with Bert-Jan Ruissen (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

4 May 2023 · Eel regulation

Response to New Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean

9 Feb 2023

Wetlands International Europe together with Wetlands International Latin America Regional Office welcome the opportunity offered by the European Commission to share our views for the joint communication on a new agenda for relations between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean (EU-LAC), which will contribute to the upcoming EU -CELAC Summit in July. We would like to recommend the EU to specifically negotiate for the recognition of the importance of the conservation and restoration of coastal and inland wetlands as a key element of the green transition in Latin America due to multiple services they provide including biodiversity, climate change adaptation and mitigation, clean water and regional development. In particular restoring peatlands will contribute to lock carbon in the soil so reducing carbon emissions. The EU should lead in tackling Regional and Global Challenges with healthy wetlands. Attached some recommendations
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Response to Protecting biodiversity: nature restoration targets

22 Aug 2022

“Bringing nature back into our lives” is the main goal enshrined in the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy. The proposed EU Regulation on Nature Restoration is a crucial piece of legislation to achieve this goal. Wetlands International Europe welcomes the proposal of the European Commission and calls on the European Parliament and Council to adopt an even more ambitious regulation and put the EU at the forefront of resolving the interlinked global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. Wetland habitats, such as rivers, lakes, marshes, peatlands, and coastal habitats, play a crucial role in reversing the loss of biodiversity. To strengthen the EC proposal in these areas, we have formulated a number of recommendations in the attached position paper and brief on peatland restoration.
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Response to Navigation And Inland Waterway Action and Development in Europe (NAIADES) III Action Plan 2021-2027

22 Dec 2020

We call on the European Commission to ensure the appropriate integration of environmental objectives in the Navigation And Inland Waterway Action and Development in Europe (NAIADES) III Action Plan 2021-2027 in specific, in order to protect freshwater species and ecosystems in Europe. Our feedback on the Roadmap concerning the NAIADES III action plan 2021-2027: • The Roadmap identifies two core challenges which the ‘integrated action plan’ must address. However, under the envisaged relevant action areas, the Commission fails to include proposals for ensuring a “sustainable transport system as a whole that fully respects the environmental acquis”. Given the close links with and large impact on the achievement of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) objectives, we ask the Commission to: - clearly define the relation between the projected development of Inland Waterways and the compliance with the WFD legal requirements and core principles. The interaction between waterway development and achievement of Good Ecological Potential/Good Ecological Status (GEP/GES) of water bodies needs to be explicitly explained in the NAIADES III Action Plan. The focus should be on how the Action Plan can help achieve GEP/GES as part of the ambition of inland navigation transport to adhere to high environmental standards, rather than just avoiding deterioration or identifying mitigation measures. - Given the above, the Action Plan should incentivize nature-based solutions which help restoring ecological functions of waterways and these solutions should be given priority under the Commission’s selection criteria for funding. - The Action Plan should clearly state that physical measures resulting from the Action Plan do NOT automatically qualify as overriding public interest under the WFD. In addition, the document should specify that maintenance operations are equally subject to WFD procedures. • For free flowing rivers, it is complicated to achieve the target physical parameters of waterway dimensions with reasonable means. The Commission should avoid that the TEN-T framework requirements for navigability make these target values mandatory to rivers where they are impossible. Remedial measures for navigation on these sections are not cost efficient, thus affecting economic efficiency of the sector. But more importantly, free-flowing rivers are ecologically valuable stretches in Europe. They provide vital havens for Europe’s biodiversity, particularly (endangered) migratory species. Measures will most certainly lead to deterioration of the ecological quality. It is preferred to adapt vessel dimensions to the river and not vice versa. For these reasons, we advise to exclude free-flowing waterways in the NAIADES III targeted actions towards overcoming key infrastructure bottlenecks. • In addition, the foreseen action areas identified in the Roadmap do not mention how the Commission wants to deliver on the needed ‘integrative approaches among all water users towards ecologic, societal, economic and safety-related functions’. We believe that only a participatory and multi-disciplinary approach will contribute to reconciling commitments for inland navigation and ecological protection and restoration, urgently needed to deliver on the objectives of the European Green Deal. • The Roadmap does not envisage any further public consultation on the initiative before the Commission will publish the NAIADES III action plan 2021-2027. We urge the Commission to launch a dedicated public consultation given the potential far reaching consequences for the environment, specifically freshwater ecosystems, of the proposed increase in capacity of inland waterways. The workshop organized in June 2020 to receive feedback from the Naiades expert group cannot be regarded sufficient effort by the Commission to invite stakeholders for specific feedback, as the working group does not involve any representatives from the environmental sector. Full submission enclosed
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Meeting with Anthony Agotha (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans), Damyana Stoynova (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans), Helena Braun (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans) and

9 Sept 2020 · The Green Deal implemetation with view to external relations

Meeting with Lora Borissova (Cabinet of Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen), Renaud Savignat (Cabinet of Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen) and

23 Jul 2020 · EU-Africa and CSO engagement

Response to EU 2030 Biodiversity Strategy

20 Jan 2020

The Communication on “The European Green Deal” released by the European Commission in December 2019 is a positive step towards integrated efforts to protect natural resources and biodiversity. Wetlands International European Association welcomes this effort but calls the EU for an additional step forward by committing to draft and approve a restoration plan for Europe, in which wetlands have a prominent place. Healthy and restored wetlands can contribute as nature-based solutions to the European Green Deal, in particular to the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030. Wetlands are some of Europe’s most important environmental assets. They occur where water meets land and in Europe include marshes, rivers, lakes, deltas, floodplains and flooded forests, peatlands and seagrass beds, bivalve and coral reefs. Wetlands exist in every country and in every climatic zone, from the polar regions to the tropics, and from high altitudes to dry regions. These healthy freshwater ecosystems support abundant biodiversity, climate resilience and the sustainability of our water systems. Yet Europe’s wetlands and their biodiversity face an emergency just as acute as the EU’s climate emergency. Wetlands comprise about 2% of the EU’s territory (12.5% at pan-European level) and 4.3% of the Natura 2000 area, and are among the most threatened ecosystems in Europe – being lost three times as fast as forests and 35% have disappeared since 1970. This comes at an enormous cost and a loss of the valuable services they provide, directly impacting Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions, quality and quantity of our waters and biodiversity. Europe and the world face a growing freshwater biodiversity crisis. Wetlands are home to more than 40% of the world’s species, but 83% of freshwater species numbers have declined globally since 1970, worse than other ecosystems. Healthy wetland ecosystems underpin solutions to the biodiversity loss emergency. Our key recommendations for the EU 1. The Biodiversity Strategy 2030 can and should recognise the importance of wetlands and prioritise actions to protect, restore and sustainably manage these ecosystems, by: a. Protecting and recovering Europe’s wetland biodiversity b. Introducing legally binding restoration targets including wetlands c. Proposing a free-flowing rivers initiative d. Conserving and restoring peatlands e. Promoting and incentivising urban wetlands 2. The EU should commit to adopt a Nature Restoration Plan linked to a nature investment plan aiming at helping Member States and communities to shift to a new way of living, working with and thinking of nature, in particular wetlands. Specific recommendation on the Roadmap: the Roadmap does not envisage any further public or stakeholder consultation on the strategy before the Commission will publish the biodiversity strategy 2030. this is not acceptable and we urge the Commission to organise a proper public/stakeholder consultation on the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 before its publication.
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Meeting with Yvon Slingenberg (Cabinet of Vice-President Miguel Arias Cañete)

16 Mar 2015 · The role of land use the Union’s climate and energy policies