Argentina seeks safeguards for vast wetlands

By Marcela Valente

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sept. 19 (IPS)— Scientists, environmentalists, farmers, fisher-people, and politicians in Argentina are coming up with innovative formulas for the joint management of three million hectares of wetlands in the Parana-Paraguay river basin, one of the world’s biggest reservoirs of freshwater and biodiversity.

The largely pristine fluvial wetlands system is shared by six provinces in northeastern Argentina, and stretches from the mouth of the Paraguay river to the source of the Rio de la Plata.

The Parana-Paraguay basin in Argentina forms part of the largest corridor of wetlands on the planet, which includes the Parana river in the Pantanal do Mato Grosso in southwestern Brazil and the Paraguay river in eastern Bolivia and Paraguay, which run south through Argentina to the Rio de la Plata estuary.

Experts say the wetlands system is as valuable, in environmental and economic terms, as the Amazon river basin.

“[The basin] is Argentina’s main source of freshwater, and contains the country’s main freshwater fishing resources,” said the director of the Fundación Proteger (Protect Foundation), Jorge Capatto. “Nevertheless, we don’t even have a name to specifically identify it yet.”

Proteger has taken the lead in designing an ambitious project for the joint sustainable management of the wetlands, and heads a movement demanding that the Parana-Paraguay river basin be included on the Ramsar Convention list of “wetlands of international importance.”

The Ramsar Convention, which took its name from the Iranian city where it was signed in 1971, is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and sustainable (or “wise”) use of wetlands and their resources.

Nearly 500,000 hectares along the middle Parana river basin in the Argentine province of Santa Fe have already been designated as a protected Ramsar site, and the provinces of Chaco, Corrientes, Formosa, and Entre Rios have also expressed an interest in setting up a protected wetlands corridor.

The Ramsar Convention currently protects 1,313 wetland areas in 138 countries, covering a combined total of 111 million hectares. The sites range in size from one square kilometer to six million hectares.

The wetlands corridor in northeastern Argentina would add another three million hectares to that total, which would forward the goal that emerged from the eighth Conference of Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention, held in 2002 in the Spanish city of Valencia, to expand the number of protected hectares from 111 to 250 million by 2010.

The initiative to designate the riverside floodplains and marshland as Ramsar sites was launched by Proteger in February, with the support of the environmental organizations Friends of the Earth, Wetlands International, and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), as well as local universities and provincial governments.

But a number of meetings had already been held to explore formulas for the sustainable development of the wetlands, and a fisheries law was jointly drafted by environmentalists and political leaders from the eastern Argentine provinces that share the river basin.

As it entails broad public participation, the joint sustainable management program would also help avert threats hanging over the basin, such as the unfettered expansion of the agricultural frontier, deforestation, excessive grazing, and the construction of large dams.

“In the rest of the world there are very few precedents for this kind of system, which makes it a very innovative initiative,” said Capatto.

Proteger and the international environmental groups promoting the initiative have held more than a dozen workshops and meetings to discuss and design a plan for the sustainable management of the corridor that has the backing of farmers and fisher-people living in riverbank communities, local authorities, environmentalists and the scientific community.

“We need to protect and manage the corridor as a whole, because the processes occurring in the basin are not only seen in the direction of the Parana river, which is the main drainage area, but also in other directions when the river overflows its banks, or the water level drops,” Juan José Neiff, director of the Center of Applied Ecology, said in an interview.

However, “Defining strict borders to delimit a site poses the risk of failing to achieve the objective of protection and rational use of an ecological system, which is very elastic in terms of its outer borders, and rich in biodiversity,” added Neiff, who is also actively participating in the project.

Since natural resources are the responsibility of each of the country’s provinces, each district must meet the requisites for getting the basin’s swamplands, marshes, peat bogs and floodplains added to the Ramsar list.

Wetlands are considered the planet’s “kidneys.” Besides providing potable water, they regulate floods, acting as sponges or reservoirs for storing excess water, and restore underground aquifers. They also serve as transport routes and tourist attractions.

Wetlands systems are home to a wide variety of fauna, and contain resources like timber, peat, fruit, reeds, resins, and fodder for livestock when the water level drops. They also accumulate nutrients that are carried to the floodplains when the water level is high.

A study currently underway to assess the economic potential of the Parana-Paraguay basin estimates the economic value of each hectare of wetland at 5,302 pesos (around $1,830).

Economist Vicente Constanza, with the Council of Scientific and Technical Research, revealed to IPS the preliminary results of the unpublished report, which focused on direct uses of the wetlands, like artisanal, commercial and sports fishing, the production of furs, leather, meat, timber and firewood, and tourism, as well as aspects like flood control and water quality.

But the promoters of the project also say inclusion of the area in the Ramsar Convention would attract between $11 and $23 million in investment in sustainable development projects, which would in turn serve as a catalyst for implementing tourism, fishing, and trade initiatives.

But merely designating an area as a Ramsar site does not guarantee that it will be preserved, as witnessed by the destruction of most of the Mesopotamian marshlands, the area where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers join, which was aggravated by the United States-led war on Iraq.

However, experts say it does provide a safeguard.

“Ramsar protection does not resolve the problem of the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, nor can it counteract the irrational effects of a war, but it does open an umbrella under which a number of actions in favor of conservation can be carried out,” said Neiff.

The secretary of natural resources and fisheries of the province of Entre Rios, Esteban Puntín, told IPS that even if inclusion in the Ramsar Convention would not solve, for example, the problem of over-fishing, it would help generate public debate that would in turn strengthen public policies.

Endangered Species of the Southern US: A docile snake in danger

A weekly column by Shawn Gaynor

Eastern indigo snake
Drymarchon corais couperi
Range: Florida and southeast Georgia
Status: Threatened 1979

Description: Average adult size is 60-74 inches (152-188 cm), record is 103.5 inches (262.8 cm). Adults are large and thick bodied. The body is glossy black and in sunlight has iridescent blue highlights. The chin and throat is reddish or white, and the color may extend down the body. The belly is cloudy orange and blue-gray. The scales on its back are smooth, but some individuals may possess some scales that are partially keeled. There are 17 dorsal scale rows at midbody. The pupil is round. Juveniles are black-bodied with narrow whitish blue bands.

First described in 1842 by Holbrook, the Eastern indigo snake is the largest snake in North America. It grows to lengths over eight feet. Docile and non-poisonous, this snake had been prized for many years as a household pet, fetching high price due to its rarity. Thought captive bred populations exist, collection of the Eastern indigo snake, along with human destruction of its habitat, has lead to a decline in populations.

The diet of the Eastern indigo snake consists of about anything that it is large enough to consume. Birds, frogs, fish, salamanders, small mammals, and other snakes are all part of its diet. Like the black snake, it will compete for territory with rattlesnakes, sometimes eating rattlers. It swallows much of its prey alive.

When disturbed, Eastern indigo snakes can raise their head and front of their body, and puff up by spreading its neck vertically (opposite of a cobra).

In the wild the Eastern indigo snake migrates to different habitat depending on season. In the winter, when the snake is breeding, it lives in the xeric sand hill habitats of Georgia and Florida. There, it occupies holes dug by the gopher tortoise as its den— dens that rattlesnakes also prefer.

Some feel that rattlesnake hunts have affected the population levels of the Eastern indigo snake, but the effect of Rattlesnake Roundups on the indigo snake are speculative. Rattlesnake hunters often pour gasoline down gopher tortoise burrows to drive out the snakes. While some indigos may be killed by this practice, the actual degree of impact on the population is unknown.

While in their winter range, the snakes do not venture far from their den, roaming an area of only about five hectares. There each couple lays about ten eggs. The young hatch for their eggs at a length of over one foot.

Hatchlings eat whatever they are able to, including each other. It takes only two-three years for the snake to reach maturity, very fast growth for a snake.

Not much is know about the summer behavior of the Eastern indigo snake, but it is believe to spend much of the summer months in swamps and streams. It hunts in a much wider range in the summer months, between 45 and 90 hectares.

To find out more about the snakes summer habits, some Eastern indigo snake are being fitted with radio transmitters in order to track there movement.

According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the decline of the Eastern indigo snakes is attributed to a loss of habitat due to such uses as farming, construction, forestry, pasture, etc., and to over-collecting for the pet trade.

More study into the life cycle of the Eastern indigo snake is needed to ensure its recovery.

Sale of forests to private loggers could create ecological crisis

By Nick Paton Walsh

Moscow, Russia, Sept. 19— A plan by the Kremlin which would allow Moscow to sell off the 843 million hectares of Russia’s forests to private logging companies has raised fears of an ecological disaster.

Forest makes up 70 percent of Russia’s territory and spans 12 time zones. It is known as Europe’s lungs and is second only to the Amazon in the amount of carbon dioxide it absorbs, and is home to many rare species. On Wed., Sept. 17 the Kremlin decided to review the law on state ownership of Russia’s forests, currently under the management of the ministry of natural resources, so they could be bought up by private companies. The estimated value of the land at private sale has been put at $164 billion. Yet environmentalists fear that the cost of its destruction to the planet, and air quality in Europe, may be far higher.

Andrei Ptichnikov, forest coordinator of the World Wildlife Fund, Russia, said: “Russia has 22 percent of the forest on earth — a very important part of climate stability and global biodiversity because of all the rare species that live there. According to some estimates, Russian forests absorb 15 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. It provides a huge amount of oxygen for not just Europe, but the world.”

A new draft of the forest code — a part of Russian law notorious among bureaucrats and ecologists for being as dense and impenetrable as the forest it governs — focuses on selling off the forest to private companies. At present, private firms can lease some of the land from the government for up to 49 years. The Kremlin heavily regulates its use.

The new law however gives any private company the chance to buy the forest land outright, or to have use of it for up to 99 years and then buy it. The government hopes it will be approved by parliament by Nov. 1. A spokesman for Alexander Belyakov, head of the parliamentary committee on natural resources, which has to approve and refine the new law, insisted that if the forest is used properly, it should grow back to 80 percent its previous size. In order to get the legislation through before December’s parliamentary elections, they intend to amend the last law, rather than push through a new one. He added that the law is being carefully scrutinized to ensure the state does not lose out if oil or other natural resources are found beneath the soil after the land is sold off.

But Ptichnikov said that, while the forest code was in parts positive because it extended the lease period for companies to 99 years, forcing companies to take a greater interest in the sustainability of their plot of forest, it also allowed the sale of land to private construction companies to build housing. “There is a lot of concern that this may affect the forest around big cities,” he said.

He added that the new forest code did not “really provide a strategic way to ensure sustainable forest management. It has a lot of Soviet-era features. The same state officials are responsible for the commercial use of the forest as well as looking after it ecologically. Obviously, they will be inclined to spend more time on the profitable commercial issues. The new law provides a logging plan that is theoretically enough to ensure sustainability. But in reality, it is hard to get it to work well because there is not enough funding [to police the law].”

In Russia, logged wood sells for $1 a cubic meter, whereas it sells for $30 in Finland and $15 in Estonia.

“Prices are cheaper, but there is also less money to keep the forest going,” said Ptichnikov. “It is difficult to see how that can change. Forest companies do not want their prices to go up.”

Alexei Morozov, from Greenpeace Russia, said, “The law’s effect depends on the regulations that govern logging. The basic regulations for the last 1997 draft of the code have only just been put into practice now. State ownership means the local government and population can negotiate over how to log some areas and protect others. Private ownership means businessmen can suit their own agenda.”

The Russian government has complained that, while Russia has nearly a quarter of the world’s forests, it exports a quarter as much wood as Finland or Sweden. Critics will say the government is keen to ensure it profits from the exploitation of the forest, rather than illegal loggers. Timber contraband already represents a large problem in the region, with Russia losing $30 billion a year from the illegal trade in wood with China and Japan, according to a report by the World Wildlife Fund last year. Legal exports accounted for only $4.15 billion in 2001, they added, calling for stricter state control.

The potential leveling of vast swaths of the Siberian forest could also threaten the existence of several endangered species. The far eastern leopard, of which there are only 30 left, and the Siberian tiger, of which 400 remain, would all suffer from widespread logging. Rare trees such as the Siberian cedar pine and Korean cedar pine are also threatened in Russia’s far east, and the wild chestnut, already being illegally logged in the Caucasus, is also at risk.

Source: Guardian (UK)