Workshop Pantanal Everglades

José Augusto Ferraz de Limajaferrazdelima@gmail.com

Pantanal National Pak - ICMBio

Brasil . Ministry of Environment - MMAChico Mendes Environmental Institute – ICMBioPantanal National Park

The Pantanal National Park in its area of influence Pantanal Conservation Area (World Heritage Site)

MiamiJuly 13, 2007

Characteristics of the Pantanal:

The Upper Paraguay River Basin, consists mainly of meandering, narrow, shallow and low speed rivers.

The lower part of its main tributaries, where the Pantanal National Park is inserted comprises a network of channel systems that connect the floodplain and rivers.

This habitat where occurs the initial stages of migratory fish is composed of shallow lakes connected with rivers and corresponds to an ecological system very sensitive to environmental changes

changes in the regime of flooding, river speed, discharge of water, nutrients and suspended matters and the floodplains effect, besides changes in slopes, severely threatening the exuberance of the biodiversity in this region.

In the primary and secondary channels, discharges, flow direction and limnological conditions, are highly dependent on rainfall and water level difference between the lakes and rivers, as well as the level of interaction between rivers and associated floodplain (“floodplain effect”).

Characteristics of the Pantanal Conservation Area

The Pantanal Conservation Area consists of a cluster of four protected Areas with a total area of 187,818 ha, formed by thePantanal National Park and the Nature Reserves Acurizal, Penha and Doroche

This area is administered in a mosaic of protected areas, expanded with the addition of the Natural Reserve Engineer Eliezer Batista, and also the Fazenda Santa Teresa, in the domain of the Amolar Mountains. This conservation effort, represents an excellent

conservation strategy to embrace in a unique region a number of landscapes, ecosystems, biodiversity and cycles involved in the Pantanal.

This mosaic is connected to the Pantanal National Park through partnership with NGOs IHP (The Pantaneiro Man Institute) Ecotrópica and ACAIA Pantanal, in a network called the Network for the Protection and Conservation of the Amolar Mountains Region, managed by IHP

Factors that may affect this site are equal to those that affect the entire Pantanal

RPPN’s Acurizal, Penha, Rumo oeste e Dorochê

Fazenda Sata Tereza

Network for the Protection and Conservation of the Amolar Mountains Region

The National Park plays a key role in the dispersion of nutrients to the middle to southern part of the floodplain and is one of the most important reserves for maintaining fish stocks in the Pantanal. The area preserves representative habitats of the wetland that contain a number of globally threatened species.

Within the known hydrological cycles of the Pantanal, during a multi-year cycle of prolonged drought (1960 decade), the Pantanal National Park should have been one of the last refuges with significant primary production to maintain the region's fauna. 

THREATS

The Pantanal can no longer be regarded as a naturally preserved area, as it once was. Follow changes occurring with increasing speed and can spin out of control.

NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR RESEARCH

We need perform comparative studies between the Everglades Nacional Park, the Pantanal National Park , the Pantanal and the Everglades wetlands as well

- Long Term Ecological Research - Long Term Ecological Responses to pluriannual variations related to the floods in the Pantanal Wetland) 

Objectives:- Monitoring of fauna (big birds and mammals) dynamics (including exotic species as golden mussel), - Monitoring of hydrological variation and flooding area - Monitoring of water quality (nutrients and suspended matter) and contamination level by pesticides and heavy metals, related to the floods (seasonal and interannual flood pulses) to diferenciate from the natural to the anthropogenic alterations (the main rivers in the plateau and floodplain areas) and to understand the main drive force acting in the biogeochemical features and therefore, in the primary and secondary production in the floodplain.

Institution: Embrapa Pantanal/ Ministery of Agriculture

Thank you very much