“It would be like shooting oneself in the foot, followed by irreversible environmental impacts.” This is what environmentalists and researchers have to say about the proposed construction of a waterway on the Paraguay River, the main water source for Brazil’s Pantanal. The project, which would include deepening the riverbed to accommodate the interests of agribusiness and mining, is being implemented gradually and has gained momentum under the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Shared by Brazil (91.6%), Bolivia (6.6%) and Paraguay (1.8%), the Pantanal is the planet’s largest freshwater wetland and is a Natural World Heritage Site. The Pantanal’s alternating rainy and dry seasons make this biome a natural cradle for biodiversity. It is home to thousands of bird, plant and fish species and is also home to traditional communities whose lives are adapted to the comings and goings of the floods. The weight of the impacts implied by construction of the Paraguay-Parana Waterway led the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) to publish a resolution asking that the project not move forward. According to the ATBC, which declares itself the world’s largest scientific organization dedicated to tropical ecosystems, many studies have already described “in a clear and unequivocal manner the environmental and social damages that can be expected from this project.” The works would take place along the North Fork of the Paraguay River, a stretch comprising some 700 kilometers (435 miles) of water flowing between the municipalities of Cáceres, Mato Grosso and Corumbá in Mato…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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