All wetland ecosystems in Namibia are under pressure of one sort or another because of the large and increasing demand for water in an extremely arid country. The key to the conservation status of aquatic ecosystems lies in the distribution and availability of water itself as a human resource and as the basis of aquatic ecosystems. Although it had been agreed by the assessment team that this paper should not address the issue of water as a resource (rather than simply as a component of aquatic ecosystems), I have found this very difficult to avoid. Because water is the limiting resource in Namibia, major conflicts have frequently arisen, and will no doubt continue to arise, between the "consumptive" users of water (agriculture, industries, mines and domestic users) and the maintenance of aquatic ecosystems, either as providers of resources such as water, fish and wetland plants for rural populations, or for conservation purposes.