Rethinking Brazil’s Pantanal Wetland

• DOI: 10.1177/1070496513493276
• Author: Antonio A. R. Ioris
• Date: 01 September 2013
• Published date: 01 September 2013
• Subject Matter: Articles

Journal of Environment & Development

22(3) 239 –260

© The Author(s) 2013

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DOI: 10.1177/1070496513493276

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Article

Rethinking Brazil’s

Pantanal Wetland: Beyond

Narrow Development and

Conservation Debates

Antonio A. R. Ioris1

Abstract

The present study analyzes the challenges related to the conservation of the

South American Pantanal. It is focused on one of its most impacted areas, the

Cuiabá River Basin. The research findings show a clear disconnect between

the official assessment and the wider public perception of the processes that

drive ecohydrological change. This partially explains the difficulty to implement

environmental regulatory tools that conflict with the preexisting foundations of

conservation strategies promoted by public agencies. The most significant result of

the research shows a lack of a shared understanding about who is responsible for

environmental problems. The responsibility is largely obscure, indeterminate, it is

typically related to someone else, the “vague other” who hijacks the river from the

rest of society, but can’t be properly identified. This perception helps to conceal

the underlying causes of environmental degradation and is limiting the possibilities

for resolution. The present article highlights the importance of accounting for a

range of highly politicized issues at the intersection between interpersonal relations

and broader socioeconomic pressures in a way that goes beyond the narrowly

framed development and conservation debate.

Keywords

environmental conservation, regional development, agribusiness, wetlands, Pantanal,

Brazil

1University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

Corresponding Author:

Antonio A. R. Ioris, Geography Building, University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street, Edinburgh, EH8

9XP, UK.

Email: a.ioris@ed.ac.uk

493276JED22310.1177/1070496513493276Journal of Environment & Development X(X)Ioris

research-article2013

240 Journal of Environment & Development 22(3)

The Narrow Basis of the Conservation-Development

Debate

The Pantanal is one of the largest and most important tropical wetlands on the planet,

as increasingly recognized in academic publications, international documents, and

government policies. It is located in the center of the Upper Paraguay River Basin

(UPRB) and has a total area of 147,574 square km shared between Bolivia, Brazil, and

Paraguay (ANA, 2005). The Pantanal constitutes both a “biodiversity hotspot” and a

priority region for environmental conservation due to mounting threats caused by the

expansion of agribusiness and engineering infrastructure (Olson & Dinerstein, 2002).

Around 80% of the Pantanal wetland is within Brazilian borders, which has particu-

larly suffered from the consequences of urban and agro-industrial expansion in areas

higher than 200 m in altitude (the plateaus that surround the Pantanal), as well as from

the intensification of mechanized agriculture and the use of chemical in the floodplain

(da Silva & Girard, 2004). Changes in the plateaus and in the floodplain tend to reduce

the variability in natural flow regimes and affect seasonal inundations (normally

described as “flood pulse”), which are critical for the maintenance of wildlife in the

Pantanal (Hamilton, 2002).

Accelerating rates of environmental degradation create a high level of uncertainty

about the future of the Pantanal wetland system. The tension between available

resources and mounting development pressures has led to recurrent calls for ecological

conservation. At the same time, the management of ecosystems and natural resources

is a matter of significant disagreement among social groups. The result is a situation

with contradictory demands and reactive responses that are, at best, only marginally

successful. Most of the conservation debate is still focused on a high-level description

of problems that, in the end, fails to deal with the underlying socioecological complex-

ity. The available interpretations concentrate on the disturbance of ecosystems, regula-

tory failures, and lack of investments (see below), but it is rare to find critical analyses

that connect conservation measures with personal subjectivities and sociospatial

inequalities. What is worse: for the majority of politicians and policy-makers, conser-

vation is typically seen as secondary to economic development in the whole region

and agribusiness production in the plateaus.

The aim of this article is to enrich the debate about conservation alternatives for the

Pantanal by incorporating comments, reflections, and expectations of different groups

of stakeholders. What follows is based on the results of qualitative fieldwork carried

out in the Cuiabá River Basin, in the northern part of the Brazilian Pantanal (almost

entirely within the State of Mato Grosso) which is one of the areas with considerable

levels of socioeconomic activity and serious environmental risks. The analysis builds

upon more than 10 years of author’s experience in project management and policy-

making, which also included the coordination of an international scientific network

and the production of two edited books on the Pantanal (Ioris, 2004, 2012). Although

the empirical results provide only a snapshot of views and perceptions, these represent

practical insights into the existing and future capacity to answer to emerging environ-

mental conflicts. Before dealing with the specific circumstances of the Cuiabá River