WWF Mediterrranean Freshwater Programme
© WWF-Canon / J.L. Ray
About IRBM
IRBM looks at managing large scale areas (basins) in order to secure the maximum economic and social benefits from water resources while preserving freshwater ecosystems. WWF aims to develop a network of sustainable models in priority river basins.
As these models achieve success in managing issues such as flood control, agricultural irrigation, drinking water and nature conservation, they will stand as examples to support WWF's requests for policy changes. By participating in these models, local groups and institutions will increase their capacity to initiate and monitor sustainable water practices.
It's an enormous challenge but WWF Mediterranean Freshwater Programme is committed to meeting it. We are aiming at:
- management of entire river basins;
- improved water policies and funding and financial schemes;
- prevention of damaging infrastructures; and
- safeguarding wetlands.
To achieve all of this, important sites will be protected and integrated river basin management (see box) promoted and supported. We are also working on increasing the capacity of the civil society and water managers to protect and manage their water resources, creating pilot projects that can serve as model, and influencing water use and management policies to safeguard water resources for future generations.
The strategies build on approaches that adapt readily to local conditions: identify threats to biodiversity on a regional basis, build capacity with key local players and demonstrate practical, goal-oriented solutions in pilot projects that can be repeated elsewhere.
Funding is an essential part of the strategy - not just funding beneficial programmes, but promoting policies that ensure no money from financial institutions such as EU or national governments is wasted on non-sustainable projects.
Our work in the region
Created in 2003, the WWF Mediterranean Freshwater Programme is focussing its initial work on sites in two geographic priorities: the Balkan rivers and streams of Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, and the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia).
WWF is also present in the Mediterranean in key river basins in southern Spain (WWF Spain), central Turkey (WWF Turkey), Italy (WWF Italy), France (WWF France) and Greece (WWF Greece).
