Paraguay-Parana Wetland System

A meeting will be carried through, between days 19 and 20 of September in Buenos Aires - Argentina, on the Paraguay-Parana Wetland System. The event is promoted by the Wetland Alliance System under the coordination of NGOs ECOA - Ecology and Action (Brazil), Fundacion Proteger (Argentina), M´Biguá (Argentina), and Both ENDS (Holland).

This meeting is focused on the Paraguay-Parana Wetland System, which is one of the world’s largest freshwater reservoirs, enclosing Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay. It is formed along approximately more than 3.400 kilometers of rivers free of dams in the Paraguay and Middle and Low Parana rivers. Approximately 20 million people live in this system, as indigenous, traditional communities, peasants, rural villages and big cities as Asuncion (PY) and Buenos Aires (AR). The region has an extraordinary ecological and economic value, with a very rich biodiversity, morphologic and climatic varieties and a huge cultural diversity. Many areas throughout this System are recognized by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, Biosphere Reserves and Natural Patrimony of the Humanity.

As a director of projects at ECOA, Rafaela Nicola talks about the main aspects of this process, from the constitution of the Alliance System in October of 2003; the 3rd Regional Pan-American Meeting of the Ramsar Convention (November of 2004, in Mexico) where the countries of the Prata Basin had made an agreement to create an agenda of cooperation for the coordinate management of the Paraguay-Parana Wetland System, and the Pocone Letter, ratified in August of 2005 with some government actors and NGOs of the five countries above, as well as international organisms.

Rafaela Nicola says that the main guideline of this event is to keep the dialogues about the construction of a Sustainable Program for the “Paraguay-Parana System of Wetlands”, seeking the development of an action plan for the elaboration of the Program, as well as suggesting a format for the creation and functioning of a working group for the Paraguay-Parana Wetland System, as it recommends the “Pocone Letter”.

The Event will congregate representatives of NGOs and governments, of Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Between the governmental participants it is confirmed the presence of Carolina Hazin, technical focal point of the Ramsar Convention for Brazil and Carolina Pedrozo, technical focal point of the Ramsar Convention for Paraguay.