the encontro das aguas State Park in Brazil`s vast Pantanal region is

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Pantanal
Cats
and
Cowboys
The Encontro das Aguas State Park in Brazil’s vast Pantanal region is the best
place in South America to see jaguars. But the survival of the species there will
depend on whether ecotourism can be developed with the right infrastructure,
regulation and enforcement. Daniel Allen reports
p h o t o g r a p h s by Da n i e l a l l e n
52 | December 2013
December 2013 | 53
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Pantanal
ABOVE: two giant otters
wrestle playfully; BELOW
RIGHT: about ten million
Yacare caiman are thought
to live in the Pantanal
I
n the rooftop bar of a floating hotel
on Brazil’s Cuiabá River, Dr Charlie
Munn winds down with a freshly
mixed caipirinha. The dynamic US
biologist has just given a group of
film-makers a presentation on the jaguar
population of the nearby Encontro das
Aguas State Park.
Revelling in his role as an ecotourism
pioneer, the entrepreneurial scientist is still
buzzing. ‘Just look at this place,’ he says,
staring out over the chocolate waters at
another glorious Pantanal sunset. Against
a crimson sky, a pair of jabiru storks return
home to roost, while bats flitter low over
the river, scooping up insects in a complex
aerial ballet. ‘Did you ever see anywhere
so beautiful? If ecotourism can’t succeed
here, where on Earth can it?’
Munn dreams of the day when
well-marshalled boatloads of nature lovers
patrol the waters of the Piquiri, Cuiaba and
Tres Irmaos rivers, seeking out jaguars,
caiman and the countless other ecological
treasures of this bountiful, northern
Pantanal wilderness. A torrent of tourist
dollars would keep unique habitats pristine,
trophy species such as the jaguar alive
and local landowners and government
officials wedded to the green cause.
For now, however, Munn’s grand plan
for commercial conservation hangs in the
54 | December 2013
balance. The word may be out on the area’s
rich wildlife-viewing opportunities – this is,
after all, the best place to see jaguars in
South America – but when it comes to
infrastructure, regulation and enforcement,
ecotourism here has a long way to go.
Each day, tourists leave Munn’s floating
hotel at daybreak, returning with tales of
jaguars and caiman on the hunt, of rare
and exotic species of bird and beast.
But whether or not they’ll be following
the same itinerary five years from
now remains to be seen.
‘It’s all about gaining traction, of setting
the right example,’ says Munn. ‘I’m a
biologist and a businessman. Of course
I want to see more tourists coming in
here and enjoying the ecology, but it’s a
two-way process. If mass tourism ruins the
environment or spoils the wildlife-viewing
experience, then the whole exercise is
pointless. To make money, you need a
product that people will spend money
to see, which means profits need to
be re-invested. If you take care of the
environment, the environment can
take care of you.’
JEWEL IN THE CROWN
One of the world’s largest wetlands, the
Pantanal sprawls across 180,000 square
kilometres – an area slightly smaller than
that of the UK. Situated south of the
Amazon within the basin of the mighty
Paraguay River, it dominates central
western Brazil before spilling across the
border into Bolivia and Paraguay. The
name may translate as ‘big swampy place’
(pântano means ‘swamp’ in Portuguese),
but in reality, the Pantanal is a giant alluvial
plain – a plain so flat that rainwater idles
across it, submerging large parts during
the wet season before slowly draining
away in the dry.
Heavy rains begin falling in the
Paraguay Basin every October, at which
point the myriad waterways of the
Pantanal begin their annual rise. Birds,
caiman, fish and semi-aquatic mammals
such as tapir and capybara disperse
across the increasingly waterlogged
landscape. Animals that prefer to keep
their feet dry – jaguars, pumas, ocelots,
crab-eating foxes and deer – congregate
in the narrow forests that remain. All in
all, the Pantanal is home to one of the
highest diversities and concentrations
of flora and fauna on the planet.
‘Apart from the chance to see the jaguar,
it’s the ease of wildlife viewing that really
attracts most overseas visitors to the
Pantanal,’ says Alan Godwin, director of
UK-based South American tour outfit Reef
and Rainforest. ‘This region affords the
best wildlife encounters of any location
in South America – far better than the
Amazon. This is the nearest one can get
to an African safari outside of Africa.’
It isn’t just the superabundance of
wildlife that makes the Pantanal special –
there’s also its sheer size. Every creature
seems to be on steroids; insects
resembling small birds bounce off vehicle
windscreens; the giant anteater, the giant
otter and the giant armadillo all call the
Pantanal home; the anaconda, the world’s
largest snake, lurks in rivers and streams,
waiting to catch capybara and pampas
deer unaware.
The symbol of the Pantanal, the jabiru
stork, is the largest of its kind, as is the
magnificent and rare hyacinth macaw. The
greater rhea, the world’s largest flightless
bird, stalks through the grass like a
whimsical stilt walker. Even the Pantanal’s
jaguars are the world’s heaviest; weighing
up to 160 kilograms or more, they can haul
adult caiman from the water with ease.
‘The Pantanal macro-system has
extraordinary ecological and economic
value,’ says Michael Becker, of WWF
Brazil’s Cerrado Pantanal Programme.
‘With its diversity and richness in
morphology, climate, ecology, quality of
soil, aquatic resources and culture, this
is a unique and precious environment.’
INCREASING PRESSURE
The Pantanal may have extraordinary
value, but it remains poorly explored,
studied and protected. Most of the
wetland is privately owned by cattle
ranchers, with less than three per cent
set aside for conservation. There are
few proper roads – construction of the
Transpantaneira, a gravel and woodenbridge highway originally intended
to traverse the entire region – was
abandoned after 143 kilometres.
As the Brazilian economy surges ahead,
the Pantanal is now facing numerous
pressures, including forest clearance and
intensive agriculture, unregulated tourism
development, and massive infrastructure
projects such as the long-proposed and
potentially disastrous Hidrovia canal,
which would see numerous Pantanal
waterways dredged and dammed to
facilitate heavy barge transport.
Today, huge sugar, rice and corn
plantations dominate the planaltos
(‘highlands’) of the Pantanal catchment.
Deforestation of the region, including
loss of gallery forests and other riverside
vegetation, as well as poor watermanagement practices, are causing
extensive sedimentation of rivers lower
down on the Pantanal plain. Pesticides,
fungicides and fertilisers, liberally applied
to poor upland soil, leach downriver, too.
‘Bad agricultural practice is one of the
most serious threats to the Pantanal,’
Becker explains. ‘While the lower floodplain
region has 87 per cent of its natural
vegetation cover intact, this figure falls to
less than half for highland plateau areas.
What happens up there increasingly has
an impact on the lower part of the basin.’
The Pantanal proper was long ago
carved up into immense cattle stations,
or fazendas. Working within the extremes
of the region’s cycle of wet and dry,
these are often so lightly placed on the
landscape that they look more like wildlife
refuges than ranches.
Indeed, as wetlands all over the world
have been degraded and destroyed,
the Pantanal, its abundant wildlife and
its low-impact ranching culture have
managed to survive relatively unscathed,
cut off from outside pressures by the
annual inundation of the land and the
near-feudal distribution of land. Fazendas
of more than 200,000 hectares are
still common here.
Times are changing, however. While
the Pantanal has hosted sustainable
cattle grazing for two centuries, recent
agricultural practices are increasingly
upsetting the equilibrium, threatening
indigenous species and impairing
ecosystems. The planting of non-native
grasses, deforestation and burning,
combined with higher cattle densities,
may bring short-term economic gain,
but they hurt the cattle industry overall by
eroding soil, threatening water supplies,
raising the risk of disease and diminishing
nutritional resources.
‘Traditional agriculture isn’t a threat
to the Pantanal,’ says Lucas Leuzinger,
owner of the Fazenda Barranco Alto in the
southern Pantanal. ‘The problem comes
when people get too greedy or don’t
respect tradition. Here we go no higher
than one cow every five hectares; some
fazendas now have ten times this density.
They use more technology, which also
undermines the role of the pantaneiro
[‘Pantanal cowboy’]. In the long run,
over-intensive grazing benefits nobody.’
CONSERVATION ACTION
Despite the varied threats that the
Pantanal faces, many of those who work
in the region remain upbeat about its
future. ‘A study undertaken by a group of
NGOs, including WWF Brazil, showed that
compared to other Brazilian biomes, the
region remains relatively well conserved
and still has great biodiversity,’ says Becker.
Becker and WWF Brazil have been
working to protect the Pantanal’s
headwaters, teaming up with public and
private stakeholders in both Brazil and
‘Ecotourism could be the saviour of the
Pantanal, but it needs to be managed
properly. If not, it could be a disaster’
December 2013 | 55
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Pantanal
A capybara, the world’s
largest living rodent,
rests beside one of the
Pantanal’s innumerable
river channels
neighbouring Bolivia to improve land use,
rehabilitate springs and degraded soils,
and promote organic cattle ranching.
Other Pantanal-based NGOs are
involved at the sharp end of animal
conservation. Panthera, a US NGO that
works to protect the world’s largest
and most endangered big cats, has
been working with Pantanal ranchers to
reduce cattle predation. Although jaguars
undoubtedly take cattle, their prey of
choice is the caiman, and there have
been suggestions that ranchers are
inflating the number of jaguar kills.
‘We feel the best way to reduce jaguar
killing by ranchers is to educate and
provide solutions,’ says Howard Quigley,
Panthera’s executive director of jaguar
programmes. ‘These solutions speak
mostly for themselves, and others quickly
pick them up. One innovative example
is our work with local ranchers to place
territorial water buffalo among livestock
to deter jaguar attacks.’
As the global price of beef has fallen, a
growing number of ranch owners have
also turned to ecotourism to boost their
income. While many Pantanal fazendas
are still working farms that offer beds and
wildlife viewing on the side, others are
making tourism their primary function.
Pantaneiros who once hunted jaguars
56 | December 2013
with dogs and guns are now the guides
and trackers who help tourists and NGOs
get close to these elusive felines.
‘We know that many ranchers operate
on a narrow profit margin, and we know
that ecotourism can provide added
value for their ranches,’ says Quigley.
‘Ecotourism can and does offset losses.
Right now, jaguar seekers are paying up
to US$800 per day to see a big cat in the
wild here. That’s a significant incentive to
preserve jaguars and jaguar habitat.’
With jaguar-based ecotourism in the
Pantanal in its infancy, teething troubles
are inevitable. Although many lodge and
tour operators adhere to green standards,
the drive to see jaguars frequently sees
environmental concerns brushed aside.
PROPER MANAGEMENT
Out on the Cuiaba River, one of Charlie
Munn’s Brazilian guides eyes a fast-moving
tour boat with obvious displeasure. ‘Some
people don’t think about their impact on
the environment,’ says Fisher Mota de
Souza with a growl as a huge wash sets
our skiff rocking. ‘As more tourists come
here, everyone is going to want a piece of
the cake. There’ll be more tour boats, more
guides, more hotels, more sport fishermen,
more people clamouring and fighting with
each other to see a jaguar.
‘Ecotourism could be the saviour of the
Pantanal, or at least one of its saviours,
but it needs to be managed properly,’ he
continues. ‘If not, it could be a disaster.’
Some tour operators have been accused
of baiting jaguar to increase sightings, and
the relative ease with which these cats can
be seen in certain parts of the northern
Pantanal would suggest a degree of
habituation. Active habituation (baiting
and luring jaguars with recorded sounds)
is now on the wane, but passive habituation,
whereby cats become accustomed to
human activity, is clearly ongoing.
‘In my opinion, active jaguar habituation
remains one of the major threats to the
species in the northern Pantanal,’ says
Rogério Cunha de Paula, executive
coordinator of the Pró-Carnívoros Institute,
a Brazilian NGO. ‘This practice isn’t observed
in the south. It can change patterns of
natural behaviour, interfering with jaguar
ecology and increasing the possibility
of human–jaguar conflict – conflict
that usually ends with a dead jaguar.’
Still, many of those in positions of
authority are seemingly aware of the
ecotourism potential of the Pantanal, and
are keen to promote the region as both a
domestic and an international destination
for nature lovers. ‘With the backing of the
Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul
travel
Pantanal
governments, the ecotourism industry
is growing rapidly in the Pantanal,’ says
Jean Fernandes of Brazilian NGO Instituto
SOS Pantanal. ‘I think there’s a growing
understanding of the need for trained
professionals to receive and look after
tourists. There is already an incentive
programme in place to help fazenda
owners minimise the impact of their
operations on the local environment.
These are all steps in the right direction.’
With only one proper road
traversing the Pantanal,
most travel around the
region is undertaken
in small boats
OPTIMISTIC OUTLOOK
When to go
The dry season (April/May to September/
October), is generally the best time to observe
wildlife as lagoons shrink, concentrating the
animals. Flooding, heavy rain, mosquitoes and
heat (often exceeding 40°C) make travel difficult
during the wet season (November to March).
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SOUTH AMERICA
area
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Getting there
B
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Pantanal
BRASÍLIA
Cuiaba
BOLIVIA
Santa Cruz
Campo
Grande
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PARAGUAY
ASUNCIÓN
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Further information
250 km
www.reefandrainforest.co.uk
250 miles
Paraná
To reach the Encontro das Aguas State Park,
visitors must fly into the city of Cuiabá (which
is connected to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo
by regular internal flights). From here it’s a
250-kilometre drive to Porto Jofre along the
Transpantaneira, the only road in the Pantanal,
followed by a boat ride. UK-based Reef and
Rainforest Tours offers a range of tailor-made
Pantanal tours in and around the park.
Amazo
Pa r a g u a y
58 | December 2013
i
C o - o r d i nat e s
B R A Z I L
north
Just how beneficial ecotourism and
changing attitudes towards the jaguar
have been to cat numbers in the Pantanal
so far is debatable. Claims by ranch
owners and pantaneiros that populations
have begun to rise are viewed with
some scepticism by government officials,
environmentalists and livestock producers.
‘It’s difficult to call it a comeback,
because the numbers aren’t there,’ says
Quigley. ‘We just don’t know how many
jaguars there were, or are, or the numbers
that are routinely killed. However, as
ecotourism has taken hold in the region,
there’s certainly less retaliatory and
sport hunting than previously. Personally,
I would say that the population is healthy,
and it’s getting healthier.
‘I’m highly optimistic about jaguar
conservation and conservation in
general in the Pantanal,’ he continues.
‘That doesn’t mean that there aren’t
any threats, particularly from upstream
agricultural development. However, we
have a lot of science behind us, and
there is more to come; we have local
people seeing and feeling the benefits
of conservation, particularly jaguar
conservation; and we’re building a
cadre of conservation advocates who
are willing to push for the implementation
of conservation measures, even within
the government.’
With the popularity of jaguar safaris
rising, a lot of big players in international
ecotourism are planning a move into
the Pantanal. The region’s natural water
patterns – as long as they persist – will
hopefully go some way to restraining
high-impact human activities, giving
properly regulated, low-impact tours
a chance to benefit the regional
ecology and economy.
‘At this stage, we urgently need to
establish a framework of communication
and standards of human conduct that
will maintain the natural beauty of the
Pantanal,’ says Quigley. ‘If we can do this,
then cats and cowboys will both have a
future in this amazing place.’
São Paulo