Global 200 Ecoregions

Protecting South America's Wetlands from "Progress" Pantanal flooded savannas


 
Major Habitat Type
Flooded Savannas

Biogeographic Region
Neotropical

Location
Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay

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Biological Diversity

The People

The Threat

The Challenge

The Response

Actions

Summary

The Pantanal, an expansive mosaic of flooded savannas and wetlands along the Paraguay River and its tributaries, is one of the largest wetlands in the world, encompassing an area four times the size of Switzerland. Enormous aggregations of birds and abundant wildlife populations occur in this highly productive ecosystem. Some 17 million people in the region rely on the rivers and wetlands of the Pantanal for food and transportation. Importantly, over 80 percent of the Pantanal floods seasonally, a process that helps modify the severity and frequency of floods downstream along the Paraguay River.

The Pantanal is under assault due to the demand for its resources. Riverine forests and upland tropical dry forests are being cleared for farming and timber. The rivers are threatened by toxic chemical pollution from agricultural pesticides, and by mercury and other heavy metals from gold mining. Gold mining is particularly crippling to river ecosystems because it involves the use of high pressure water to blast away river banks. The use of high water pressure produces heavy siltation that kills fish and aquatic plants.

An even greater threat to the Pantanal wetlands is the planned expansion of the Hydrovia Paraguay-Paraná waterway to provide the land-locked countries of Paraguay and Bolivia with better access to the Atlantic Ocean. This waterway project, involving the governments of Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay, would drastically alter the water flow patterns of the Pantanal. This would mean ecological disaster for the people and wildlife that depend on the wetlands, as well as a much greater threat from damaging floods downstream.

As originally designed, long stretches of the Pantanal River system would be channelized to facilitate shipping. Beginning in Cáceres, near the headwaters of the Paraguay River in Brazil, this 3,442 Km waterway would continue down the Paraná River and would cut overland to the Uruguay River, where it would reach the Uruguayan port city of Puerto Nueva Palmira on the Rio La Plata estuary. The Hydrovia Paraguay-Paraná waterway project is part of an ambitious international effort to build heavy infrastructure in the Pantanal region. It is hoped that by slowing the development of the waterway that conservation concerns can be effectively addressed.


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