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Wetlands store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined, making them essential for ensuring a stable climate. They also support the livelihoods of over a billion people worldwide. However, we are losing them at a rate three times faster than forests. Global commitments to protect and restore wetlands remain underfunded.

Wetlands play a disproportionately large role in supporting biodiversity, maintaining human health and stabilising our global climate. Despite this, the rate of wetland loss far outpaces other biomes, making them one of our planet's most threatened ecosystems. We must reverse this now.

EJF's recent investigations into exploitation and illegal fishing on Chinese vessels in the Southwest Indian Ocean and the destruction of the Pantanal wetland in Brazil have brought to light the alarming pace of global environmental destruction, often accompanied by egregious human rights violations.

These crucial issues underscore the urgent need for the EU’s global leadership. EJF’s recommendations highlight strategic priorities underrepresented in political discussions, envisioning the EU’s next term, from 2024 to 2029, as a period of intensified efforts to combat illegal fishing and strengthen wetland protection worldwide.

This research explores the role played by EU cattle supply chains in driving the conversion of native vegetation to pasture in the Pantanal biome, with a view to informing the European Commission’s impact assessment of the expansion of the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products to include Other Wooded Land and Other Natural Ecosystems.