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Nature for Water, Nature for Life

Publication: Nature-based solutions for achieving the Global Goals

By IW:LEARN

April 27^th, 2018

Water Security is the capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability.

Water security is recognized as one of the great challenges of the 21st century. The triple decline in quantity, quality, and reliability of potable freshwater poses numerous serious problems.

WATER IS ESSENTIAL TO ACHIEVING THE GLOBAL GOALS

The publication Nature for Water, Nature for Life: Nature-based solutions for achieving the Global Goals, addresses this issue by highlighting the importance of safeguarding nature in order to secure water-related services, and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. And beyond this sharing and communicating purpose, the publication is a call for action, to all stakeholders, from governments, to land use planners, to corporations, and to citizens everywhere, to take urgent action to secure nature for life.

"We are rapidly losing the natural infrastructure that sustains life on Earth. We’ve lost 130 million hectares in the past quarter century alone. Yet nature is essential to safeguarding water – healthy forests, wetlands, mountains and grasslands are critical if we are to weather the storms ahead of climate change and projected increases in water demand. We must begin to view nature conservation as an investment in long-term resilience and economic development, rather than as a short-term societal cost." - Jamison Ervin, Ph.D. Manager of the Global Programme on Nature for Development, UNDP.

There is an urgent need for a call to action to protect, restore, and manage nature if we are to ensure water security and to achieve the Global Goals.