Conservation of the Wetlands of the East Asian Australasian Flyway

Programme Partner: BirdLife International

Region: Asia Pacific

Wetlands provide essential ecosystem services such as food, fuel, income, climate services (including climate resilience and carbon sequestration) for nearly 200 million people in the Asia-Pacific region. They also serve as important stopovers for migratory birds using the East Asian Australasian Flyway (EAAF). Coastal and inland wetlands are under threat because of the extensive loss or degradation, land conversion, drainage for unsustainable agriculture and increasingly as a result of climate change.

Recognising the scale of the crises along the EAAF, BirdLife convened a unique partnership bringing together the Asian Development Bank (ADB) with other key partners to help protect priority wetland clusters along the EAAF. The initiative will see ADB bilateral loan-based financing to governments to support investments at various flyway sites (Flyway Sites) along the EAAF to address the climate emergency, support local livelihoods and address biodiversity loss. The initiative also envisages the setting up of a multi-donor pooled granting mechanism to fund action by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) for complementary interventions at Flyway Sites.

It is however critical that the ability of local CSOs to play an enabling and complementary function under the initiative is tested and their ability to deliver impact at Flyway Sites demonstrated. Accordingly, BirdLife and two BirdLife Partners are ready to move quickly to undertake pilot projects at three wetland sites - Boueng Prek Lapouv and Boueng Chmmar, in Cambodia and Pak Thale-Laem Pak Bia in Thailand - to demonstrate impact, innovation and the replicability and scalability of interventions so that they can be utilised across multiple Flyway Sites.