UK water win

We were successful in our legal action against Defra and the Environment Agency for failing to ensure that the UK’s most precious rivers, lakes and coastal areas were healthy by the end of 2015. This was a legal requirement under the Water Framework Directive. In the judicial review that we initiated along with the Angling Trust and Fish Legal, the judge recognised the need for urgent action by the government to protect our most important rivers and wetlands from agricultural pollution. This includes evaluating the use of mandatory water protection zones alongside voluntary steps by farmers, which have so far been unsuccessful.

Pantanal pact

The Pantanal, which spans the borders of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, is the world’s largest freshwater wetland. Its headwaters supply water to a floodplain that supports incredible biodiversity, as well as local livelihoods. But this natural wonder is threatened by deforestation, habitat degradation and poorly-planned infrastructure development. With support from the HSBC Water Programme, we’ve been encouraging governments, the private sector and local communities to take action to protect their freshwater springs and rivers and secure the future of this vital wetland. We asked 25 mayors in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state to sign the Pantanal Pact, and all have now done so. The pact lists 34 shared priorities that need to be addressed to conserve their water resources across nearly 750km of rivers. Now we’re working to ensure there are clear plans for implementing these commitments.

Finless feat

The critically-endangered Yangtze finless porpoise is the world’s only freshwater porpoise. Only around 1,000 remain and its population is falling by nearly 14% a year – a decline precipitated by pollution, illegal fishing and dam-building in the Yangtze. This year, we supported projects to translocate eight finless porpoises, so they can start new populations in oxbow lakes we’ve been helping to restore for the last four years. These carefully selected lakes offer a more stable habitat than the river they’re naturally connected to. Recent surveys in two lakes in the Yangtze basin – Dongting and Tian e Zhou – show great achievements: porpoise numbers have remained stable in the former, and increased from 31 to 60 in the latter over the last five years. We’re working with local communities and government, with the support of partners including HSBC, to improve the health of the Yangtze so the river can offer the porpoise a safe home.

Seeds of success

A payment for environmental services scheme that we launched through the HSBC Water Programme is reducing soil erosion in east Africa’s Mara river basin, as part of our efforts to restore healthy river flows and improve farmers’ livelihoods there. This area has become increasingly vulnerable to flash floods and silted rivers owing to illegal logging and charcoal production in the forests, as well as land being converted for tea growing and cattle grazing. More than 500 farmers from the Nyangores catchment, a tributary of the Mara river, have joined our scheme. We provide incentives for them to install grass strips and terraces on farmland that prevent soil erosion and prevent sediment from entering the river. Some farmers have also reported an increase in milk production, as the grass provides plentiful food for their livestock.

Turning the tide

We’ve designed a system that shows dam developers which Amazon rivers are priorities for conservation and must be kept free-flowing. And we’re delighted that, after using this hydropower planning tool in the Tapajós basin, the Brazilian energy planning agency EPE is now using it in two additional tributaries – the Trombetas river and Rio Negro. There are already 154 hydroelectric dams operating in the Amazon; another 21 are under construction and over 250 are in the planning stages. These pose a major threat to wildlife and local communities if they’re not planned sustainably. We’ve trained government staff and the finance and energy sectors in Brazil to use our planning tool to inform their decisions about better dam placement. Now we’re lobbying the Peruvian government to use it too.