2017 marks the tenth anniversary of the Brisbane Declaration on Environmental Flows. This declaration was issued at the 2007 River Symposium and advocates for environmental flow protection and restoration. Since that time, governments and water management authorities across the globe have made significant progress towards developing policies and regulations to protect and restore environmental flows despite significant challenges to implementation.
In honour of this anniversary, Ecofish, in conjunction with Brian Richter of Sustainable Waters and Allan Locke of Locke and Associates, is pleased to be working with WWF-UK in its initiative to inspire further implementation of environmental flows in rivers. Ecofish will be preparing a report to showcase success stories where actions have led to successful environmental flow implementation, with benefits for society and ecosystems in a variety of rivers across the globe. We hope these stories will motivate senior decision makers in government ministries and agencies (food, water, energy, economic planning), public and private sector financial institutions (including multilateral and bilateral donors), key economic sector actors (including farmers, dam operators, utilities), research institutions, and NGOs to further action. We also hope that the lessons that have been learned from the case studies will provide practical guidance to those who are facing similar challenges linked to environmental flow implementation and water resource management.