Rivers Run Through It

The Pantanal, a vast wetland covering parts of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, is threatened by multinational development plans. Image: Arquive Ecoa 

At the Taiamã Research Station, in a remote part of this Brazilian state, a five-foot jabiru stork strolls down the grassy landing strip, always a few paces ahead of curious visitors. From a nearby tree come the screeches of hyacinth macaws, just one of many endangered species in the research area. At the dock, spectacled caimans wait for their daily handout of table scraps from the ranger. (Tossing leftovers to these crocodiles is a source of entertainment in this solitary site.) Teddy-bear-like capybaras—the world's largest grass-eating rodents—placidly observe from the banks of the lagoon.

The Taiamã Reserve lies in the heart of the Pantanal ("swamp" in Portuguese), the world's largest tropical wetland system. During the rainy season it covers some 81,000 square miles in Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, an area larger than England. The United Nations has deemed the Pantanal so important that in 2000 it declared it, along with large parts of the surrounding highlands, a "World Biosphere." The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, a global environmental treaty that calls for conservation and wise use of wetlands, has named the Brazilian national park here its largest Ramsar site.

Yet for more than a decade, these pristine wetlands have been threatened by the encroachment of multinational agribusiness and its accompanying agrochemical pollution, along with such large-scale engineering projects as highways, pipelines and, most notably, the Hidrovía, a multinational plan to create a 24-hour, year-round commercial water route of the Paraná and Paraguay, two of the continent's major rivers.

Rios Vivos, an international coalition of some 300 groups in South America, Europe and the United States, has led a long campaign to save the region's wetlands and its people, so for now the animals at Taiamã Reserve and the scientists who study them are safe. Proponents of the Hidrovía continue to push for the project, however, and on the Pantanal's periphery, immense fields of soybeans creep closer.

To see at first hand the effects of development on the watery vastness of the Pantanal and to plan for its future, 35 visitors from South America, Holland and the United States, including scientists, environmentalists, activists, and government and bank officials, embarked on an eight-day voyage down a 236-mile stretch of the Paraguay River in Brazil, from Cáceres to Corumbá.

Rafaela Nicola, an ecologist who works for Ecology in Action (ECOA), a Brazilian advocacy group based in Campo Grande, the capital of Mato Grosso do Sul, organized the river expedition as part of a continuing campaign by Rios Vivos and the Pantanal network, to preserve the region. "We are looking at everything that impacts the area: navigation, burns to clear the land for cattle and soy, fishing, tourism, mega projects," says Nicola. "By bringing people from different groups and countries to work together, we hope to come up with solutions that take into account the culture and life of indigenous and traditional communities."

The efforts of ECOA and Rios Vivos are prompted by the reality facing advocates of the environment and sustainable growth: the need to cross national borders and form diverse coalitions to confront problems that once might have seemed too complicated or too large to tackle. Rios Vivos is convinced that it is only through such integrated approaches that the social and ecological problems faced by many riverine communities can be addressed and new, less invasive approaches to economic development can be promoted.

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