An integrated wetland assessment toolkit : a guide to good practice

For billions of people throughout the world – especially the poorest – wetlands are critical for livelihoods. Wetlands are also home to an enormous diversity of wildlife, much of it unique to freshwater habitats. Traditional separate biodiversity and livelihood assessment and economic valuation fails to present the full value of a wetland in the face of alternative wetland uses, and as a result wetlands are lost through development activities. Developed through case studies in Cambodia and Tanzania, this publication presents a process for integrated wetland assessment, bridging for the first time the disciplinary divides between the development, economic and conservation sectors. The Toolkit provides a set of practical and policy-relevant methods for information collection which can be used by those involved in wetland conservation and development planning.