In Brazil, Mapping a New Park Amid Border Disputes

Zoltan Istvan
National Geographic Channel

July 28, 2003

Holding a GPS navigation device in one hand and paperwork in the other,
Adilio Miranda climbs into a clattering helicopter. The pilot quickly
lifts off for a journey into the wilds of the state of Mato Grosso do
Sul in southwestern Brazil.

Minutes later, they're hovering above an area of the Serra da Bodoquena region known as the Pantanal, the swamp, for its annual flooding. The Pantanal, roughly the size of the state of Kansas, is the world's largest wetland.

Below stretch unspoiled rivers and patches of forest. Miranda, a Brazilian physician turned conservationist, motions the pilot to a hillside where he'll alight and begin the day's task of gathering coordinates.

For much of the past year, Miranda has been carving out a new national park: Parque Nacional da Serra da Bodoquena. Miranda is the park's director, appointed by IBAMA, Brazil's environmental agency.

"It's not every day you get a chance to create a new national park in one of the world's richest wildlife areas," Miranda says at headquarters in Bonito.

The Pantanal is also endangered by mining, excessive land-clearing, and poaching of jaguars and rare birds, reports the Earthwatch Institute in Maynard, Massachusetts. Big-scale farmers or cattle breeders often clear-cut huge tracts of land with slash-and-burn techniques.

The new park, established by presidential decree three years ago, answers a need for conservation areas.

Threatened Forests and Animals Need Protection

The parklands are home to some of the last remaining stretches of the species-abundant Atlantic rain forest and many creatures on the "threatened" list like the giant otter, Brazilian jaguar and harpy eagle.

The park's rivers, like the Rio Salobra in the north and the Rio Perdido in the south, teem with aquatic life. A report from the World Wildlife Fund-Brazil identifies 264 species of fish in the Pantanal.

"We're very excited about our studies going on in the park," Miranda says. "We have a chance to find and document new species of wildlife—as well as learning how best to protect the known species."

But the effort to create the park still faces opposition. And preliminary environmental studies need to be completed, too.

"We're still in the early stages of making the new park a reality," Miranda says. "Because the opening of the park is facing conflicts, it could still be another 12 to 24 months before the public gets access into it."

The park would cover nearly 190,000 acres (about 76,890 hectares). Within its boundaries live over a hundred human residents, many of whom are farmers or cattle ranchers. Some commercial interests are reluctant to surrender so much land to conservation.

The Brazilian government has proposed to buy out everybody with property in the parklands.

Not everybody wants to be bought out. The debate is heated at town hall meetings in Bonito.

"It's difficult to stop working your land just because the government asks you to and offers you money. This is my job, and I make a living here—just like my parents did before me," says Joao, a cattle rancher who didn't want to give his surname. Cowboys in the Pantanal go back as far as five generations.

Many Locals in the Area Favor the New Park

Other landowners have accepted the buyout. Most of the people who live in the municipalities within the parks area—Bodoquena, Bonito, Jardim, and Porto Murtinho—eagerly await the park's opening.

"We're a tourist-oriented area," says Donizete Ferreira da Rocha, a Bonito resident and tour guide. "This whole area is going through an ecotourism boom. And the park will have everything: caving, hiking, wildlife watching, and freshwater snorkeling. A lot of people are going to benefit, even if the park's landowners don't."

"Thousands of locals in the area will benefit from the national park. Think of all the hotels, restaurants and shops that will have increased business—all from a rich wildlife area that is being totally preserved and protected," says Leana Paula Bernardi, a researcher studying tourism in the Pantanal area.

Apart from the land questions, research continues by IBAMA and other environmental organizations. In a freshwater assessment before the park was established, "Conservation International and the Field Museum (in Chicago) discovered five new species of fish," says Reinaldo Lourival, head of Conservation International Brazil's Pantanal operations.

"This park is really going to provide a haven for a variety of plants and animals in this region," Miranda says. "We've needed something like this for a long time."

National Geographic Today, 7 p.m. ET/PT in the United States, is a daily news journal available only on the National Geographic Channel. Click here to learn more about it.

Have a high-speed connection? Watch National Geographic Today in streaming video.