22 September 2014: Wetlands International has released a book, titled ‘Downstream Voices,’ which presents stories from the Mahanadi delta, India, the inner Niger delta, Mali, and the Senegal River, Senegal. Authored by Fred Pearce, these stories highlight the journeys of communities dependent on these ecosystems.

The stories capture lessons learned from Wetlands International programmes in these areas, which eschew hard infrastructure interventions in favor of ecosystem-based approaches (EBA) to reduce disaster risk while conserving ecosystem services, such as through the planting of mangroves and other native wetland species.

The book includes pointers for wetlands interventions, such as: healthy ecosystems make a crucial contribution to the resilience of communities and nations; ecosystem degradation should be considered as one of the root causes of disaster risk; EBA, such as wetlands restoration and integrated water resource management (IWRM), should be the center of solutions to reduce disaster risk; risk reduction measures should be planned at multiple spatial scales; and the design and implementation of ecosystem-inclusive risk reduction measures requires collaboration with multiple sectors. [Wetlands International Press Release] [Publication: Downstream Voices]