File:The wetland of Estuário do Sado in Portugal.jpg

English: Lead has been used in ammunition and fishing tackle for centuries, but only a small proportion of the lead fired hits its target. The remainder lands in the environment, where it can be mistaken for food by birds, leading to the poisoning of a wide range of species. Estimates indicate that every year, 21 to 27,000 tonnes of lead gunshot are being dispersed in European wetlands by hunting and sports shooting. At the end of October 2020, the European Parliament’s Environment Committee voted to ban the use of lead ammunition in wetlands across the EU: this regulation, according to the European Chemicals Agency, will help prevent the death of one million waterbirds from lead poisoning every year. This image acquired by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites on 20 November 2020 shows the wetland of Estuário do Sado in Portugal, one of the 1,011 Ramsar Sites in Europe which will benefit from this new EU regulation. Every day the Copernicus Sentinel missions deliver petabytes of open data that are useful for studying the state of nature around the world.