World Water Day - 22 March 2007

Latin America

Group discussion in the workshop in Cuiabá MT © Pierre Girard (Centro do Pesquisa do Pantanal, Cuiabá)

The Pantanal is the largest wetland of the world except for rain forests. It measures about 250.000 km 2 (about the size of Great Britain) and is one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world. Its low population density, size, inaccessibility and the fact that it is situated in three countries ( Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay) cause fragmented political and scientific attention. International and local universities and research groups carry out research, NGOs are developing action, tourism is growing slowly, land use is locally organised, but little is done in a coordinated way. Priorities are not set and in many cases interests are conflicting, such as between farmers and fishermen, those favouring biodiversity conservation and those promoting land development and also between countries.

INREP: A bi-regional research agenda for the Pantanal, based on a participatory approach (INCO-CT2005-014997) pursued as its main objective to strengthen the cooperation between policy makers, stakeholders and scientific institutions in Brazil , Bolivia and Paraguay and to stimulate the cooperation between these three countries, the European science community and NGOs working in the region. This is expected to help develop a shared research agenda and support sustainable water management at river-basin scale and efficiency in water use in the Pantanal.

Therefore the setting of a policy supporting research agenda has been carried out involving representative groups in the region. With support of enthusiastic persons involved in the Pantanal two preparatory workshops, a symposium and an additional workshop in Bolivia have been held.

Analysing results of the group discussion in the workshop in Campo Grande © Jorgen Leeuwestein (Ecobusiness, Brasilia)

This project is of importance for strengthening the international dimension of the European Research Area. Europe has a long-standing tradition in river management, biodiversity and related research. The Water Framework Directive and European concepts for water management have partly informed the consultative process of reforming water legislation in Brazil. However, there is growing environmental concern in the Pantanal region, specially related to water management, biodiversity and institutional aspects. This would benefit from more scientific cooperation.

Participants in the workshops used of a SWOT framework (SWOT = Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to structure their analyses. In the preparatory workshop in Cuiabá ( Mato Grosso, Brazil), 37 participants (representing Paraguay, Bolivia, Mato Grosso and the Federal Government of Brazil) attended. In the following workshop in Campo Grande 35 participants (representing Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraguay and the Federal Government of Brazil) discussed the problems and opportunities for the future.

The documents produced here have been the basis for the Campo Grande symposium in July 2006, where 82 participants from Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Germany and the Netherlands discussed the SWOT analysis and turned this into a research agenda. Observers were present from the EU representation in Brazil, UNESCO, the Dutch and the US embassies.

Workshop in Santa Cruz de la Sierra © Arturo Moscoso (ICEA)

Meanwhile, in Bolivia the political situation was changing. Therefore special visits were made to Santa Cruz de la Sierra and La Paz. As the situation in Bolivia was rather fluid at the moment of the symposium, the Bolivian participants decided to organise an additional workshop in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It was organised with the participation of 20 local organisations (public sector, private sector and research groups) on 7 November 2006. This way, the every effort was made to take account of the full range of perspectives from different social actors and ensure that the ensuing proposal for a research agenda would be relevant in the evolving context.

The project produced country documents for the three countries, analysing the political and institutional situation and results of the SWOT analysis. These documents have been produced in Spanish and Portuguese. The English translation is still being produced. The final symposium enabled the production of a document with priority actions for the region. This been transformed into a research agenda for the region. Based on the outcomes of the INREP project, the following items are considered as major themes:

• Environmental impacts - diagnosis and remediation; this includes the Hidrovía of the Paraguay River and the role of the Pantanal for the climate of the region and the Plata Basin under changing climatic conditions.
• Assessment and mapping: this includes the international cooperation in a monitoring system and the exchange of data that is crucial for the understanding of human influence on the ecosystems and can promote international cooperation in the region.
• Sustainable natural resources management: this includes study of the special way that wetlands have to be managed by farmers, fishermen and others, combined with cost-benefit analyses and other types of relevant analyses considered essential to enable the maintenance of land and water quality in the Pantanal.
• Governance, laws, institutions and policy: research into social interactions. In this context, participation of different social groups is of utmost importance to understand the complex relations in water and land management. Social participation in the process of decision making is helped by long term cooperation and expected to enable sustainability.
• Sustainable development: diagnosis and solutions: scenario models can help to develop Decision Support Systems based on different options for management, taking into account the extent of the area, the low population density and the predominant natural processes.
• Capacity building is cross cutting to the five preceding issues involving the identification of gaps in education, information, technologies, methodologies, institutional frameworks and services.

The results of the project and the research agenda can be found at the website: http://www.inrep.nl.