Critical habitat for rare and vulnerable bird and fish species

For rare and vulnerable bird species such as the marbled duck, crested coot and lesser kestrel, the wetlands along the river Sebou and Merja Zerga lagoon provide critical habitat. For many migratory bird species, Morocco is their first or last African feeding point.

This North African water system is the southernmost occurrence of several European fish species: brown trout dart through clear, fast-running Atlas mountain streams; slower-moving, more vegetated sections of the river Sebou are home to loaches such as Cobitis marocana and Cobitis taenia.

Pollution and agricultural overuse

In this region where water is limited the Sebou is stretched beyond its capacity. Following a massive fish kill early in 2004, investigations were unable to find a single toxic event. Instead, they found that a number of agricultural and industrial pollutants had raised salinity and reduced oxygen below viable levels.

Agriculture consumes the greatest part of Sebou’s water basin, with an established irrigation system based on open air channels and an increasingly widespread system of drip irrigation. Dams built to improve water distribution silt up quickly due to high erosion, especially where forests no longer protect the catchment.

Many industries use the river as a sewer for dumping untreated waste, so water becomes too scarce to meet human demands, its quality deteriorates, and finally, valuable wetlands and biodiversity are ignored.

The WWF Mediterranean Programme Office has formed a partnership with the Montenegrin NGO Green Home to try to address these threats through the “Sharing Waters” project.

Calling for better management of Sebou water

With so many crucial demands, WWF calls for the sustainable use of the Sebou’s water, through the engagement of interest groups at all levels, from the government to the local community.

Greening the policy that links the European Union to Morocco

The political relationship between the EU and its non-EU neighbour countries is very strong and has been shaped notably by the European Neighbourhood Policy(ENP). WWF and its partner NGOs are advocating that long-lasting and sustainable development strategies and activities are implemented within the ENP policy and funding framework for the protection of natural resources, including freshwater, in this area.

Recently, the EU and Morocco have developed closer bonds expressed in the “Statut Avancé”, signed in October 2008, which represents a step further along the path to cooperation between the two parties, making EU policies even more relevant to the Moroccan context.

• strengthen civil society organizations so that their interests and opinions are taken into account in decision-making processes, and they have an active role in the implementation of sustainable water management;
• develop studies and research that evaluate the current conservation status of Neretva and Trebijsnica rivers and assess the present and future situation of dams operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These studies will propose a series of measures to minimise the impacts of existing and planned dams;
• partner with key sectors involved in water management to find together the best solutions to either avoid impacting dam operations and propose alternative solutions, or ensure that where they are needed their impacts are well evaluated and controlled;
• raise the awareness of local people and decision-making authorities on results of studies/research and promote IRBM principles as the best means of obtaining long-lasting water resources.