Why the Paraguayan Chaco?

Between Bolivia and Argentina, and at the crossroads of south-central South America, lies Paraguay, a country which may contain the largest remaining expanses of undisturbed Chaco, and nearly one-third of the Chaco region overall.  With > 90% of its Upper Parana Atlantic Forest already lost, Paraguay’s last remote frontiers occur in the Gran Chaco and Pantanal.  Although constituting more than 60% of Paraguay’s land area, the Chaco is home to less than 10% of the country’s human population.  Along with the southern Bolivian Chaco and Pantanal, the Paraguayan Chaco could contain the greatest potential for long-term jaguar conservation outside of the Amazon Basin.  The past two decades however have seen dramatic changes to this vast, previously remote area.  Sharply rising beef prices have led to the intensive development of large ranches for raising cattle.  Approximately 1000 hectares of Paraguayan Chaco are being converted daily due to expanding habitat conversion for livestock and urban expansion.  This rapid loss of native habitat is leading to local declines in jaguar prey populations.  In addition, the suitability of the Chaco as forage for cattle has led to a lack of livestock and pasture management in many parts of far northern Paraguay.  These actions are the basis for increased incidents of livestock depredation by jaguars, and thus conflict between jaguars and humans.

Project Goals

Actual and perceived human-jaguar conflict is the greatest threat to jaguars across the region, and they are routinely killed shortly after their presence is detected.  Driving this problem is the acceleration of deforestation rates and exacerbating it, the development of new roads, which increases accessibility into the region and brings with them more pastures and illegal hunting of prey.

To address these concerns, as well as a relative lack of knowledge about the status, distribution, and ecology of jaguars across the region, we launched the Chaco Jaguar Conservation Project in 2008.

Among its main goals are the following:

• to map the distribution and status of jaguars across the international Gran Chaco
• to prevent and/or mitigate human-jaguar conflict, reduce depredation-related jaguar mortality, and explore alternative economic land uses
• to increase capacity and foster mentoring of emerging and existing conservation professionals, protected area staff, students, and local biologists.
• to affect successful jaguar monitoring and research, conflict mitigation, and the implementation of successful field and grassroots conservation programs
• to research the impact of habitat conversion and conflict with humans on jaguar ecology and population dynamics across the Gran Chaco, to better inform and identify targeted solutions and measures for reducing livestock depredation and addressing stakeholder needs and concerns
• to build a regional genetic reference library for jaguars, to identify the origin of illegally traded jaguar parts, and evaluate the efficacy of habitat corridors in facilitating the connectivity of jaguar populations
• to engage the general public and citizenry on jaguar conservation issues, promote public education of jaguar conservation needs, and raise awareness regarding threats to jaguars across the Gran Chaco-Pantanal ecoregions
• to  implement a regionwide conservation and landscape connectivity strategy across the watershed regions of the Gran Chaco and Pantanal, with an emphasis on northern and western Paraguay, southern Bolivia, and north central Argentina

We are also collaborating with institutional partners in the Bolivian and Argentinean Chaco and the Pantanal to advance jaguar conservation efforts in these regions.  Among our objectives in southern Bolivia are to evaluate the effectiveness of Kaa-Iya in maintaining stable long-term jaguar populations, and increase the self-reliance of protected area staff in monitoring those populations well into the future.  In south central Paraguay and north central Argentina, we plan to identify habitat critical to preventing the further contraction of the jaguar’s range, and secure the commitment of landowners to maintaining suitable jaguar habitat.