{"id":25294,"date":"2022-04-20T06:17:42","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T06:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fonasc-cbh.org.br\/?p=25294"},"modified":"2022-04-20T06:44:29","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T06:44:29","slug":"25294","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fonasc-cbh.org.br\/?p=25294","title":{"rendered":"FONASC MT APOIA E DIVULGA ARTIGO: “Pantanal port licence would threaten the world\u2019s largest tropical wetland”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FONASC MT APOIA E DIVULGA ARTIGO: “Pantanal port licence would threaten the world\u2019s
largest tropical wetland”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publica\u00e7\u00e3o em mar\u00e7o da Dra. D\u00e9bora na revista Nature, pesquisadora do FONASC, sobre os riscos da navega\u00e7\u00e3o no tramo norte do Rio Paraguai. Estas s\u00e3o algumas das contribui\u00e7\u00f5es do FONASC na luta contra a Hidrovia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcondes G. Coelho-Junior1,2\u2009\u2709,
Luisa M. Diele-Viegas\u200a 3,
Debora F. Calheiros4, Eduardo C. Silva Neto1
,Philip M. Fearnside5
and Lucas Ferrante\u200a 6<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the Editor \u2014 Brazil\u2019s Pantanal is recognized as a Natural World Heritage Site and as a Wetland of International
Importance by the Ramsar Convention (Fig. 1). Brazil\u2019s 1988 Constitution recognizes the Pantanal as \u2018national patrimony\u2019, making any proposal that threatens the integrity of this biome unconstitutional. Nevertheless, on 26
January 2022 the Environmental Council of Mato Grosso State (CONSEMA) approved the \u2018preliminary licence\u2019 (the key first step in the licensing process) for a port to export soybeans that would be transported through the Pantanal on barges travelling on a waterway created by dredging the Paraguay River.
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In the 1990s the stretch of this river that passes through the Pantanal (the Tramo Norte) was dredged, and barges carried soy from C\u00e1ceres to Corumb\u00e1 (in barges smaller than those considered to be economically viable today), but this was halted by a judicial order in 2000. After this, only boats for tourism and local commercial trade navigate on this stretch of the river. Some dredging has continued on a modest scale to remove the yearly accumulation of sediments and allow passage of boats, and in 2017 and 2018 the amount of sediment removed increased substantially.
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, the National Department of Transportation Infrastructure (DNIT) signed a contract to greatly increase the amount of sediment dredged from the Tramo Norte2 . The plan is to transform the Tramo Norte into a large-scale navigation channel, requiring dredging at 17 sites to deepen and widen the channel3
. This is the most fragile stretch of the Paraguay River and flanks three protected areas for biodiversity (Guir\u00e1 State Park,
Taiam\u00e3 Ecological Station and Pantanal Mato-Grossense National Park, the final two being Ramsar sites), as well as one
Indigenous Land (Guat\u00f3) and several communities of traditional Pantanal residents (pantaneiros). The dredging
lowers the water table, with effects throughout the Pantanal wetlands \u2014 in addition to the impacts of barge traffic. The
proposed plan presents a weak analysis, ignores climate change scenarios that foresee severe drought seasons, and neglects socio-environmental impacts5
.
Although the waterway plan3 remains unapproved, on 25 January 2022 the Public Ministry of Mato Grosso issued a document pointing out that approving the proposed port as a free-standing project serves to avoid consideration of the massive impacts of the waterway plan. The licence for the port was approved on 26 January 2022 despite its Invironmental impact assessment (EIA) having more than 100 inconsistencies violating a National Committee of Wetlands (CNZU) Recommendation (no. 10\/2018) and various legal requirements, as well as ignoring the objections raised at the Environmental Council meeting by researchers, environmental agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Traditional peoples\u2019 groups have denounced both the lack of consultation as established
in Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (to which Brazil is a signatory), and the EIA having omitted the presence of traditional peoples in the area surrounding the port
.
Other bills currently advancing towards approval would increase the threat of the wider Pantanal waterway project. Bill
3\/2022 in the Mato Grosso state legislature would allow licensing-free soy planting in the Pantanal. This would verturn
Recommendation no. 11\/2018 of the CNZU, which prohibits the cultivation of soybeans in the Pantanal. Bills advancing in the National Congress would dismantle federal environmental licensing12, thus removing any barriers to the full complex of soy infrastructure threatening the Pantanal.
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The Pantanal is already suffering severe environmental impacts: it has lost 68% of its water area since 1985 (ref. 13) and it is still recovering from the unprecedented fires of 2020 \u2014 almost 1\/3 of its area was burned (including areas in almost all Indigenous Lands and protected areas14), killing an estimated 17 million vertebrates.
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Proposed interventions on the river would potentially change flood pulses,profoundly altering the ecosystem of this
large wetland, which has a role in global climate regulation as a carbon sink. The intervention is also expected to disrupt the livelihoods of traditional peoples and to jeopardize the income that local residents earn from wildlife tourism and fishing5,9,17.
The destruction of Pantanal is neither profitable nor positive in any aspect.
Fig. 1 | Pantanal biome landscape. The Pantanal is a tropical wetland that covers three South American
countries (Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia). Credit: Heideger Nascimento
Nature Ecology & Evolution | www.nature.com\/natecolevol
correspondence
The Mato Grosso state government should reverse its decision to approve the port and ensure that decision-making is based on scientific advice, bridging the gap between science and policy for conserving this hotspot for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Decisions that threaten the Pantanal also threaten Brazil\u2019s international reputation in environmental matters and invite boycotts of Brazilian soy by importing countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2750
Marcondes G. Coelho-Junior1,2\u2009\u2709,
Luisa M. Diele-Viegas\u200a 3,
Debora F. Calheiros4, Eduardo C. Silva Neto1,
Philip M. Fearnside5 and Lucas Ferrante\u200a 6
1
Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro
(UFRRJ), Serop\u00e9dica, Brazil. 2
Network in Ecological
Economics, Commons Governance, and Climate
Justice, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
3
Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL), Macei\u00f3,
Brazil. 4
Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation
(Embrapa Pantanal), Corumb\u00e1, Brazil. 5
National
Institute for Research in Amazonia (INPA), Manaus,
Brazil. 6
Ecology Graduate Program, National
Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA),
Manaus, Brazil.
\u2709e-mail: marcondescoelho22@gmail.com
Published: xx xx xxxx
https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41559-022-01724-z
References<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Conselho Estadual de Meio Ambiente do Estado de Mato Grosso<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n