Abstract
The megadiverse biome of the Paraguayan Pantanal is in danger due to the expansion of cattle ranching and agricultural frontiers that threaten not only the fragile equilibrium of natural resources, but also that of local governance and cultural identities. As a consequence, weak governance stresses the relations between natural resource-dependent communities, generating socio-environmental conflicts. This perception study seeks to find community-based governance models for sustainability in the context of Paraguayan wetlands. According to the organizational principles of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), we applied qualitative approaches with the use of the Governance Analytical Framework (GAF) to identify problems and social norms. Our findings suggest that the Yshiro indigenous self-organized group (Unión de las Comunidades Indígenas de la Nación Yshiro (UCINY)) can be considered as a model for community-based governance. Besides, we discovered that this specific governance model is highly threatened by the impact of the national neo-extractive economy.
Highlights
The Pantanal is one of the largest freshwater wetlands in the world, covering approximately 150,000 km2 in the upper basin of the Paraguay River
We found that the Yshiro can represent a community-based governance model, by including Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), for sustainability in the context of threatened Paraguayan wetlands
Within the many perceived problems by both the Yshiro community leaders and the 15 institutions, the one perceived by the indigenous community is regarded as the most relevant, because they represent the largest portion of the society, and because of the impact it has on their survival as a group
Summary
The Pantanal is one of the largest freshwater wetlands in the world, covering approximately 150,000 km in the upper basin of the Paraguay River It occupies part of the territory of three countries: Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. Within Paraguayan territory, the typical vegetation forms a complex of landscapes of alternate flooded savannas or swamps, lagoons, dams, beaches, sandbanks, palm groves of Karanda’y (Copernicia alba), and forests, mainly of red quebracho. It is internationally recognized for its great wealth of wildlife, birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals [1,2,3,4], containing the highest concentration of aquatic species in the world [5]. The lack of socio-economic research in the area is limiting knowledge about the area, as well as negatively affecting the quality of policy decision and implementation [8]
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