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Freshwater - Precious Sources

Healthy freshwater systems are precious and essential sources to maintain and enhance the quality of life around the world.

Wetland ecosystems are often mistakenly undervalued. Few people realize the range of products derived from freshwater habitats such as wetlands - food such as fish, rice and cranberries, medicinal plants, peat for fuel and gardens, poles for building materials, and grasses and reeds for making mats and baskets and thatching houses.

We need to ensure that we leave our children a Living Planet, as well as satisfy our immediate and future needs for water.
(Dr Claude Martin, Director General of WWF International)

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Fisherman on Danube, near Tutrakan, Bulgaria

We cannot live without fresh water. It's as simple as that.

In the coming decades, problems associated with the lack of fresh water or access to safe, unpolluted, waters are set to reach global proportions. The solution is not to be found in a single response. It requires a concerted, multifaceted approach to managing natural resources with stakeholders at all levels, from isolated village communities to global industries and world leaders. In order to meet today's and tomorrow's demands for safe, fresh water, we must work together to find an acceptable compromise to what is otherwise destined to be a problem of global scale.