The world's largest tropical wetlands are under threat, with scientists warning that devastating wildfires and proposed commercial waterways could mean the “end of an entire ecosystem”.
The Pantanal, which stretches from Brazil to Bolivia and Paraguay, covers more than 42 million acres – an area larger than the UK. It is one of the world's most biologically rich environments and “a true paradise on Earth,” according to Carl M. Wentzen, an ecologist at the University of Tours and UNESCO's chair of the River Culture Commission.
“Nowhere else can you find so many macaws, jaguars, swamp deer, anacondas, caymans, more than 300 species of fish, 500 species of birds and 2,500 species of aquatic plants,” he told the Guardian. “All of them are at risk.”
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Record-breaking wildfires: 'An alarming situation'
The Pantanal is “more pristine and natural” than most other wetlands in the world, World Wildlife says. It accounts for about 3 percent of all wetlands on Earth, but less than 5 percent of that is protected. Most of the land is privately owned and primarily used for cattle grazing.
This year, the Pantanal has been hit by record fires, with more than 1.3 million hectares estimated to have burned – an area almost half the size of Belgium. Meteorologists say the fire season started a month earlier than normal and has been “more intense” due to strong winds, high temperatures and little rainfall, according to the BBC.
In June alone, 1,434 fires were recorded in the first 18 days of the month, far more than in June 2020, a month marked by devastating fires that destroyed almost a third of the Pantanal. This is a 980% increase from the previous year, according to data from Brazil's National Space Research Institute (INPE).
The Copernicus atmosphere monitoring agency said this was an “alarming event” as Brazil's wildfire season usually “peaks” in August and September.
This year was the hottest, driest and windiest June on record, according to a study released this week by the World Weather Attribution Service.
The analysis found that human-induced climate change has intensified fire conditions by about 40 percent and made fires four to five times more likely. The Pantanal has also lost about 80 percent of its surface water since 1985, a greater rate than any other ecosystem in Brazil.
The waterway could mean 'the end of the Pantanal as we know it'
The growth of industrial soybean farming is increasing demand for waterways to transport goods from producing areas in central South America to ports in Uruguay and Argentina, according to The Guardian.
To meet this demand, the Brazilian government plans to develop approximately 500 miles of the Paraguay River into the Hydrovia Paraguay-Paraná (HPP) waterway.
Proposed development plans, the expansion of industrial agriculture and the ongoing climate crisis pose “existential threats to ecosystems”, 40 scientists warned in a paper published in the journal General Environmental Sciences.
The dredging needed to make the river navigable by barges will further reduce the floodplain and increase the risk of fire. “If the Hydrovia plan goes ahead, the Pantanal as we know it will probably disappear due to the navigation of heavy train barges in the Pantanal and the dredging of key points on the Paraguay River,” said Pierre Girard, a research scientist at the Federal University of Mato Grosso and the Pantanal Research Center.
The paper said dredging would cause “serious degradation of globally exceptional biological and cultural diversity” and threaten the livelihoods of some three million indigenous people who live in and depend on the wetlands.
“We really want the world to know what's going on,” said Wang Zeng, the study's lead author. “We wanted to bring people together to explain in detail what the current situation is. It would be a senseless tragedy.”
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