The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive source of global knowledge and solutions to help boost efforts to safeguard these iconic animals – and to benefit the people and nature that depend on the rivers within which they live. This information is for use by stakeholders and other decision makers to help develop tailored recommendations and plans for specific river dolphin populations experiencing threats in individual river basins / countries / regions.
The report is the output of a thorough assessment of practices that are being implemented for river dolphin conservation and management in different parts of the world, drawing insights, lessons learnt, and best practices from the wealth of resources and approaches being used to conserve rivers, river biodiversity and river dolphins. The information presented here includes the best available peer-reviewed science and research on river dolphins globally, as well as information related to some other species and environments from which useful lessons and experiences can be drawn. It is not intended to be an exhaustive review of all available literature, but rather to provide an overview of the approaches that worked, demonstrated by some case studies.