World and I Magazine - Pantanal: Land of the Great Heartbeat

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L I F E
FEBRUARY 2000

The Land of the Great Heartbeat

Frederick A. Swarts

Driven by its annual pulse of massive flooding followed by gradually receding waters, the vast Pantanal wetlands remain one of the world's ecological treasures even as development begins to encroach on it.

n the center of the South American continent, south of the Amazon Basin and east of the Andes, lies an immense landlocked river delta where annual floodwaters regularly rise several meters then take months to recede. For the abundant and diverse plants and animals living there, the flood pulse is normal and life giving.

* The Pantanal basin begins where the northern highlands terminate with a sharp drop.

        Fish reproduce as the waters rise, thus providing their offspring with the greatest survival options. Yet when the waters recede, stranding great numbers of fish in backwater ponds that slowly dry up, these fish provide a bounteous feast for birds that have flown into the Pantanal to enjoy the season of plenty. While the permanently rooted trees are adapted for both wet and dry land, plant species are wonderfully diverse in their responses, with some rooted plants claiming a short sprout-to-blossom-to-seed cycle, while floating plants such as the water hyacinths multiply readily as they follow the ebb and flow of the flood pulse.
        This vast wetland is shared between Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil, with Brazil claiming some 70--80 percent of it. Although we call it "the Pantanal" in English, its name in Bolivia and Paraguay is "el Gran Pantanal" and in Brazil, "Pantanal Matogrossense." The Pantanal is indeed vast, with estimates of its size ranging between 140,000 km2 (54,000 square miles) and 210,000 km2 (81,000 square miles). Using a mid-range estimate of 170,000 km2 (65,600 square miles)-- and this is probably low--the Pantanal's area would still be greater than the combined areas of Hungary and Ireland.
        The word Pantanal derives from the word pantano, which generally translates as swamp, or marsh, or bog. The Pantanal, however, encompasses a variety of ecological subregions. One finds in the Pantanal a kaleidoscopically changing mosaic of large rivers and standing water, dry forests, and diverse types of river-edge, marshy, and lake-type wetlands--the transitional, halfway world between aquatic and terrestrial systems.
        Driven by the annually variable flood pulse, the Pantanal can also show substantial changes from year to year. This wide variety of ecological subregions, seasonal cycles, and successional changes, combined with abundant water and high primary productivity, contribute to the Pantanal being one of the most remarkable and biologically diverse systems in the world.
        The Pantanal is essentially a huge, gently sloped basin that receives runoff from an upland watershed twice its size (the "Planalto," or highlands) and slowly releases the flood pulse of those waters through a single, downstream drainage channel, the Paraguay River. The Pantanal and the Planalto together make up the Upper Paraguay River Basin. Over millions of years of geological time, the natural processes of sedimentation washed down from the highlands have gradually filled the basin (which, it is thought, was once below sea level) to an average height of about 100 meters (325 feet) above sea level.

* A family traverses a flooded Pantanal plain.

        The Pantanal's two seasons give the floods their pulse: The wet season, from roughly October to March, provides about 80 percent of the rainfall, and the remainder falls during the dry season, which lasts from April to September. About 70--80 percent of the Pantanal area floods each wet season, with water levels in some areas reaching as much as 5 meters (16.5 feet) higher than during the dry season.
        The Pantanal itself is sparsely populated. In fact, the Bolivian and Paraguayan sides are virtually uninhabited. The population of the Brazilian side is variously estimated at 30,000 to 300,000 inhabitants (including native Indians), depending upon how the region is delineated and what population centers are included.
        Economically, the main activities in the Pantanal area are cattle ranching, agriculture (rice, soybeans, corn, and sugarcane), agroindustries, mining (gold, diamonds, iron, manganese), professional fishing, and tourism--the latter more common as sportfishing than ecotourism. The upstream watershed around the Pantanal, the Planalto, has experienced accelerated growth in recent years, particularly in the large capital city of Cuiabç.

        A rich diversity

        The Pantanal is one of the great reservoirs of plant and animal life on the planet. This floodplain wetland system is highly productive, supporting both a large number of species and an abundantly high concentration of these species. It has been said that the Pantanal has the highest concentration of fauna in the New World, comparable to the densest animal populations in Africa. It is not infrequent for producers of films or videos on Amazonian fauna to send their camera crews to the Pantanal to film the animals, they being too rare or hard to spot in the rain forest.
        Bird species are particularly diverse. This region is an important migratory bird stopover point and wintering ground, with birds coming from three major migratory flyways--ospreys from regions north of Mexico, woodstorks from the Argentine pampas to the south, and flycatchers from the Andes to the west. The result is one of the planet's most diverse avian communities. The Pantanal's fish species are likewise quite diverse, although a far distance from that of the Amazon region.
        Even more than for its diversity, the Pantanal is renowned for its concentration of animals, which makes it a visual paradise for naturalists, photographers, and ecotourists. The Pantanal wildlife density is considered to be the greatest in Latin America.

        The alligator-like caimans are particularly abundant, with one scientist reporting a figure of 10 million caimans in the Pantanal--the "highest concentration of crocodilians in the world." In the 1970s and '80s, an estimated 1 million skins a year were illegally poached. The largest living rodents, the capybaras, are estimated to approach a population of a half-million in the Brazilian Pantanal alone, and the Pantanal is still one of the best places to see jaguars, giant river otters, giant anteaters, giant armadillos, the endangered maned wolves, and marsh deer--each of which is considered to be the largest of its kind in South America. Hunting is proscribed throughout the Upper Paraguay River Basin, as it is throughout most of Brazil.

        The value of the Pantanal

        As a wetland of exceptional size, the Pantanal is one of the most impressive freshwater fisheries on the planet. In addition, it not only provides an extensive water supply and transport system for its inhabitants, but serves to remove sediments and pollutants, thus improving the water quality for millions of people downstream. The reduced water velocity in the Pantanal, and its storage of water, offer excellent circumstances for mineral uptake by plants, microbial processing, and the settlement of sediments and chemicals such as heavy metals, which are taken up and held by sediments.
        Flood control is another major asset of the Pantanal, as its flood pulse heartbeat reduces and delays the Rio Paraguay's flood peak by as much as two to three months, so the Rio Paranç into which the Paraguay empties experiences two separate flood peaks, its own and that of the Paraguay, instead of one combined massive flood peak.
        Other, less quantifiable benefits cannot be so readily converted to dollars and cents. These derive from experiencing the beauty and almost mystical peace and clarity of mind of being immersed in a natural wonder like the Pantanal.
        Despite the many benefits of wetlands, as powerfully demonstrated in the Pantanal, the common view for many years has been that wetlands are wastelands, whose value can be enhanced by draining, diking, and otherwise modifying them so that the land might be used for agricultural, residential, or industrial purposes. Many wetlands have been lost or seriously compromised by mining, waste disposal, pollution, or redirecting the water for more valued purposes.
        The Pantanal wetland faces the same threats. This is a region on the verge of major developmental changes. An expanding infrastructure, growth in population, and expansion of industry and farming are all part of the changing reality of the Pantanal and its surrounding highlands at the turn of the millennium. Between major hydrological projects and the everyday encroachments of development's less desirable consequences, the region is confronted with ominous signs.

        Threats to the Pantanal

        What are some of the current challenges being faced by the Pantanal?
        The area is often referred to as pristine and intact. It is true that the interior is relatively untouched, when compared with many other systems, and population and infrastructure remain low in its more remote regions. If one considers the Pantanal in the context of its adjoining upland watershed, however, there are serious problems. Furthermore, some serious problems are escalating inside the Pantanal itself.
        Water pollution. One increasingly serious concern is water contamination, especially from mining byproducts, agrochemicals, sewage, and garbage.
        A common problem caused by gold mining operations is mercury contamination, as mercury, often at concentrations approaching three grams of mercury for every gram of gold mined, is used to concentrate gold found in sand and gravel deposits. Although Brazil passed a law prohibiting the use of mercury in gold mining in December 1988, mercury use and contamination has remained a troubling factor nonetheless as enforcement of the law confronts the reality of many thousands of miners spread over vast and often isolated areas. High levels of mercury have been found in some fish and fish-eating birds such as kingfishers and raptors.
        Agrochemicals--including fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides--pose another difficult problem, because they are washed into the streams and rivers. Toxic pesticides such as disulfan, endosulfan, and thiodan are used and sold freely.
        Both untreated domestic sewage and garbage are discharged into the Pantanal's rivers and wetlands, adding to the organic loading and sediment and chemical contamination. Much of this comes from rapidly growing domestic centers in the highlands outside the Pantanal and particularly in the northern area of the Pantanal.
        Indeed, the Pantanal has a remarkable capacity to cleanse much of the natural and man-made organic waste, chemical contaminants, and sediments that flow into it, but the extent to which it can process this contamination is not well known, and the watershed's rapidly increasing population heightens the gravity of the situation.

* The Pantanal's boundary is poorly defined because of the variability of annual floods. This map indicates wetlands descending from Brazil into Argentina. The region bordering Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia is generally designated as the Pantanal.

        Loss of biodiversity. At least 50 different species are reported to be in threatened or endangered status in the Brazilian Pantanal. Such large predators and herbivores as the giant river otter, maned wolf, ocelot, cougar, jaguar, giant anteater, marsh deer, and giant armadillo used to be found in great numbers here. Today, these are all listed as endangered or threatened with extinction.
        The main sources of the pressures on biodiversity appear to be anthropogenic effects: habitat destruction, poaching, overfishing, and the business of capturing threatened and endangered species for export or for the Brazilian pet trade. Although big-game hunting is proscribed in the Pantanal, and has been since 1967, there remains considerable poaching. It has been slowed, but it is still significant for large mammals such as the jaguar. Birds such as the hyacinthine macaw, blue and yellow macaw, red and green macaw (or green-wing macaw), blue-fronted parrot, and toco toucan are captured for resale as pets, part of a $5 billion global business of illegal animal trafficking.
        The appeal to animal traffickers is obvious: A single hyacinthine macaw can fetch $6,500 to $12,000 in the United States. And the Pantanal remains one of the few hyacinthine macaw strongholds.
        Substantial overfishing also takes place. As with hunting and capturing animals, fishing is also regulated by law, but enforcement is often inadequate.
        Erosion and sedimentation. Human sources--including clearing land for agriculture, opening new roads, logging, and extensive burning--are accelerating the natural process of erosion and sedimentation. A lot of these problems are in the upstream highlands and naturally affect the downstream Pantanal.
        Fires of human origin are particularly prevalent in the Brazilian Pantanal and highlands during September and October; they are set by ranchers to clear off old pasturage to bring up tender, green shoots for the cattle or as an easy (and snake-free) means of clearing the land for agriculture. Although natural fires play an environmental role, as they do in the Everglades, the extent of this human-induced burning is quite remarkable.
        In recent years, agricultural development in the Brazilian highlands has been increasing substantially, leading to an accelerated clearing of the land. This deforestation has led to increased erosion and sedimentation of the Pantanal waterways, which in turn is increasing flood risk, lowering biodiversity, and disrupting the overall sediment budgets of the catchment basin. As with other problems in this remote region, although there are a number of good federal and state laws to limit land clearing and to control erosion, enforcement lags behind. For example, there are laws proscribing landowners from clearing forests all the way to a river's banks, but such restrictions are often ignored.
        In Bolivia and Paraguay there is still a low density of people and low impact, and thus those areas remain quite well preserved. However, the increasing population in the Brazilian highlands and the Pantanal has resulted in increased problems of sedimentation and erosion.
        Modifications of natural cycles. Another challenge within the Pantanal is modification of the natural hydrology through construction of local dams and dikes (major hydrological projects are discussed below). Dikes constructed by landowners keep water out of the property and, thus, enhance agricultural use of the rich river-deposited soils for crops and grazing. However, the dikes also induce new water-flow patterns and increase flooding outside the dikes. Furthermore, the dry lands protected from the seasonal flooding through such constructions gradually decline in fertility due to the absence of the natural nutrient-replenishing floods. This leads to increased need for commercial fertilizers. Construction of dams on streams similarly alters water-flow patterns, sediment deposition patterns, and the natural balance between wet and dry seasons.

        Megaprojects and the Pantanal

        Two megaprojects are a potential threat to the Pantanal's integrity.
        Gasbol. Gasbol is the common name for the Gasoducto BolÆvia-Brasil, or the Bolivia-Brazil Gas Pipeline, which goes right through portions of the southern Pantanal. This project, whose first phase was completed in 1999, offers millions of Brazilians access to lower-cost natural gas and gives Bolivia a significant source of revenue. There is, nonetheless, much concern regarding the pipeline's potential impact on the Pantanal. Although efforts have been made to lessen any harmful effects, the impact has still to be assessed.
        The Paraguay-Parana Waterway Project or "Hidrovia." The Hidrovia Project, an intergovernmental plan originated by the La Plata Basin countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay) in the late-1980s, proposed opening up over 3,442 km (2,065 miles) of the Paraguay and Paranç Rivers for good navigation for barge convoys. A primary goal of the project was to create year-round navigational transport of cargo from landlocked regions in the northernmost navigable portion of the Paraguay River to the Atlantic Ocean. Original proposals called for straightening, widening, and deepening the meandering upper stretches of the Paraguay River to accommodate barges up to 2.8 m (9.2 feet) draft during low-water periods.
        Clearly, the potential long-term economic benefits being discussed were considerable: the possibility of year-round ports for landlocked countries, indefinite work for waterway construction and maintenance companies, and the overall economic integration of the region.
        However, the costs of the project were likewise considerable, particularly when one added in major losses of strategic wetland functions. One could expect increased flooding downstream, water contamination, erosion, disruption of natural communities, interruption of natural cycles, damage to fisheries, and reduced water quality for the millions of people downstream.
        Large sections of the Pantanal would have been drained, as water-flow velocity increased down the Paraguay River. Fauna dependent on aquatic environments would have lost critical refuges, and the normal heartbeat of flood pulses into the floodplain, so essential for sustaining diversity and productivity, and even farmland fertility, would have been disrupted. Farmlands would not be revitalized by floodwaters; wetlands would shrink radically.
        The Hidrovia project, as originally proposed, is no longer seen as viable. Yet, this does not mean that hydrological projects on the Paraguay River and its tributaries will not occur piecemeal and still impact the Pantanal in a major way. Various smaller hydrological initiatives remain active. These proposed and actual structural improvements include dredging and channel straightening of the Paraguay River and its tributaries. Such smaller initiatives, it has been observed, can lead to a series of small decisions whose cumulative negative impact may actually be worse than a larger, comprehensively planned project. Furthermore, various interests continue to advocate for a commercial waterway into the heart of the continent, even if implemented piecemeal.

        Initiatives toward sustainable development

        Ecotourism. Ecotourism is often presented as the best long-term hope for the Pantanal, bringing in tourist dollars to the local communities and thus creating an economic incentive to preserve the environment. Generally, ecotourism is considered tourism to relatively intact natural areas, and it has low impact on the environment, promotes conservation, and provides some beneficial socioeconomic return to the local populations. With tourism being one of the world's largest businesses, ecotourism indeed would seem more profitable in the long term than other, more environmentally destructive economic activities.
        However, there are several obstacles to ecotourism's viability. In the Pantanal, there is a serious lack of infrastructure, such as accommodations and transportation. There is a lack of information for tourists, and trained guides are few. Furthermore, the region remains poorly known in many nations, including the United States.
        As a result, there is currently relatively little ecotourism in the Pantanal region.

        Cattle raising. One of the area's chief sources of revenue, cattle ranching, is perhaps unique in that it is a widespread economic activity that impacts the landscape and yet many authorities do not see it as a big environmental problem. Instead, it is generally presented as a long-term activity that developed in harmony with the environment, or at least poses minimal negative impacts.
        One reason offered for such a view is that the Pantanal has many natural grassland areas that do not require the type of deforestation one might find in the Amazon, so cattle simply graze freely on unaltered land. Furthermore, extensive flooding during the wet season can limit the number of cattle raised on a piece of land to the pasturage available when much of the land is submerged. For such reasons, cattle raising is often promoted as a viable economic activity for the future of the Pantanal.
        Nonetheless, cattle ranching is not without its problems and therefore its detractors. One can observe the burning of wild landscapes to either clear land for cows or bring up fresh shoots. Native plant life may be lost when cattle are moved to new pastures. There are also concerns regarding the effect of cattle grazing on soil erosion and sedimentation and the loss of wildlife refuge for native animal populations. The impact of cattle grazing on the Pantanal is a topic that is hotly debated and needs further research.

        Stewards for today and tomorrow

        At this point, the Pantanal is a vibrant, amazing natural treasure, maintaining its life-giving, flood-pulse heartbeat. Clearly, it can have a bright future, given proper science and good management. Yet we should remember that the Atlantic Forest, which once stretched for 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) along the coast of Brazil, is now less than 4 percent of its original size. This type of decline has taken the better part of 500 years of steady exploitation. Florida's Everglades declined in less than a century. The Pantanal, arguably the largest wetland in the world, could well succumb in less than 30. We have the somber responsibility to ask what we can do to ensure the best possible future for this ecological paradise for subsequent generations.n

        Additional Reading

         Additional Reading:V. Banks, The Pantanal: Brazil's Forgotten Wilderness, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1991.
        C.K. Eckstrom, "A Wilderness of Water: The Pantanal," Audubon 98:2 (1996):54--65.
        M. Margolis, "Treasuring the Pantanal," International Wildlife 25:6 (1995): 12--21.
        On the Internet
         Additional Reading:www.pantanal.org/Main.htm
        www.ramsar.org/mtg_pantanal1.htm
        www.alanet.com.br/ms/pantanal/

Frederick A. Swarts serves as secretary-general of the World Conference on Preservation and Sustainable Development in the Pantanal, and as senior research scientist with the Waterland Research Institute in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. This article is a condensation of his opening chapter written for the forthcoming The Pantanal in Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay: Selected Discourses on the World's Largest Remaining Wetland System (Hudson MacArthur, 2000).