If his ultimate goal weren’t so ambitious, Jorge Cappato might be tempted to gloat. As national coordinator of Protect Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group here, he has helped pull off a conservation coup.

On Feb. 2, World Wetlands Day, Argentina designated the 1.26-million-acre (508,000-ha) wetlands of Chaco province as a Ramsar site, thanks in part to lobbying and groundwork done by Protect Foundation and UK-based WWF.

The wetland, in the floodplain of the Paraná and Paraguay rivers, is linked to Santa Fe province’s Jaaukanigás wetlands, which became a Ramsar site in 2001. It is the 13th wetland area Argentina has earmarked for protection under the 1971 Ramsar Convention, known formally as the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, Especially as Waterfowl Habitat.

But the designation doesn’t satisfy Cappato and other leaders of Protect Foundation, which is affiliated with the Netherlands-based green group Friends of the Earth. To the contrary, they see it as merely another step toward a string of interlocking Ramsar wetlands stretching all the way from Formosa province south to Buenos Aires.

For Protect Foundation, this 800–mile-long (1,300-km) network not only is possible, but already is taking shape.

Cappato points to the Chaco designation and to the Feb. 2 announcement by the new governor of Entre Rios, Jorge Busti, that his government will do the necessary groundwork to create a Ramsar site in his province.

If completed, the network Cappato describes would comprise an estimated 7.4 million acres (3 million has) of Argentina’s Paraná and Paraguay river floodplain.

Not everyone here embraces the idea. Sara Sverlij, the head of Ramsar-site issues at Argentina’s Environment Secretariat, says such a vast assemblage of Ramsar sites would be extremely difficult to administer. A major problem, she argues, is that it would encompass provincial capitals along the river system.

“This is where you have the greatest percentage of our country’s population, and those cities bring a lot of problems to the ecosystems [such as] the dumping of waste and sewage,” she says. “In a Ramsar site, the ecological characteristics cannot be modified. So if we include such important cities as Santa Fe, Paraná, Resistencia and Corrientes, it is a problem to develop an [adequate] management plan.”

Urban impacts

Myriad activities along the river ranging from fishing to sewage disposal might present complex conflicts with Ramsar requirements, she says. Such conflicts may soon confront the newly designated Chaco site, Sverlij adds, suggesting that dredging planned there might alter the wetland ecosystem.

“It is [preferable] to designate small Ramsar sites that can be managed instead of such a great big corridor,” Sverlij says. “We are aware that the floodplain is of great ecological and economic value, but such a sweeping project could only leave us with conflicts.”

Cappato disagrees. He acknowledges that a prime benefit of designating such a massive corridor would be ecological: it would help preserve wetlands that are vital to Argentina’s biodiversity, to its water resources and to flood control along the Paraná. But he adds the Ramsar process also could be used to promote sustainable development.

“The idea is to make rational use of the wetlands, which for Ramsar is synonymous with sustainable use,” he says. “We do not want to ban human activity in this region. This cannot even be done. We want to take advantage of the important resources of biodiversity that exist in order to improve the quality of life and create new job opportunities.”

Adds Cappato: “Northeastern Argentina is an area of incredible poverty. Yet this is an enormous contradiction, considering what the wetland can offer. Ecotourism experts believe this area could collect close to US$100 million annually just in sport fishing and tourism.”

Flexibility urged

While some environmentalists here welcome Protect Foundation’s plan, others suggest that the designation process be made more flexible to allow differing conservation needs to be taken into account from region to region.

Marcelo Acerbi, director of conservation and sustainable development for the Argentine environmental group Wildlife Foundation, says that while conserving wetlands might be a priority in one area, preserving jungle habitat might be more important elsewhere.

Thus, he adds, protected-area and biosphere designations also could be brought to bear depending on the results of ecological studies made along the river corridor.

“What we are talking about is how to make use of the resources at hand, whether technical or economical, so that we have a planning process for the region [and can] diagnose the problems and conservation needs of a determined area,” Acerbi says. “A Ramsar site is just one example. It is also possible that [in some areas] a Ramsar site is not required.”

It is up to the provinces to submit to federal authorities the technical information and mapping required for a Ramsar designation. The national government then reviews the information and decides whether to formally propose that the wetlands in question be designated as a Ramsar site.

Cappato acknowledges that Protect Foundation’s proposal is ambitious. He also accepts Acerbi’s point that other protected-land designations such as parks and biospheres ought to be considered along the Paraná. But he insists that the full network of Ramsar sites must be assembled on account of the singular ecological importance of wetlands. “Wetlands are fundamental,” Cappato says.

And international conservation trends favor the strategy that Protect Foundation seeks along the Paraguay and Paraná rivers, he adds.

“The idea of a wetland corridor is assuming greater importance compared to the old idea of islands of conservation,” he says. “What we are seeing at the international level is a growing interest in corridors that allow species to move from place to place.”