Pantanal

Pantanal, the largest expanse of wetlands in the world, is a fluvial flood plain of 55,600 square miles in the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso Do Sul, Brazil. It lies on the east bank of the Paraguay River between Cuiabá and the Bolivian border, and has been referred to as one of the world's greatest wildlife preserves, containing over 600 species of birds and 350 varieties of fish. As of 1990 the Pantanal was 95 percent privately owned, largely by ranchers who pasture cattle and water buffalo there.

Concern has been expressed about the future of the Pantanal, most notably in a 1990 Brazilian prime-time soap opera, because mechanized agriculture and mining continue to outpace scientific studies of the area. Yet it has also been suggested that ranching has not had as negative an impact on the Pantanal as in other regions of Brazil because of its unique ecosystem.

European ranching was introduced in the northern Pantanal during the mid-eighteenth century when former gold miners and merchants began to establish cattle ranches at Poconé and Cáceres with the aid of royal land grants. The anti-Portuguese riots near Cuiabá after Brazil's independence increased migration into the southern Pantanal. During the War of the Triple Alliance (1865–1870) this region suffered extreme disruptions as the ranching population fled toward Cuiabá.

The indigenous wildlife on the Pantanal includes deer, ocelot, puma, boar, anteater, tapir, rhea, capybara, and caiman. The only officially protected areas within the Pantanal include 500,000 acres under the auspices of the Pantanal National Park, and 25,000 acres of the Taiama Ecological Station. The wetlands are accessible by means of the Transpantaneira—a 90-mile dirt road built by military engineers through the northern Pantanal in the 1970s, in hopes of developing the economic potential of the region.

See alsoEnvironmental Movements; War of the Triple Alliance.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Vic Banks, The Pantanal: Brazil's Forgotten Wilderness (1991).

Additional Bibliography

Brum, Eron, and Regina Frias. A mídia do Pantanal. Campo Grande: UNIDERP, 2001.

Pearson, David and Les Beletsky. Brazil: Amazon and Pantanal. Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2005.

Robert Wilcox, "Cattle and Environment in the Pantanal of Mato Grosso, Brazil, 1870–1970," in Agricultural History 66, no. 2 (1992).

Swarts, Frederick. The Pantanal: Understanding and Preserving the World's Largest Wetland. New York: Paragon House, 2000.

                                   Carolyn E. Vieira