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San Rafael National Park, Paraguay

Photo courtesy of Guyra Paraguay

San Rafael National Park is situated within one of the largest remaining tracts of the South American Atlantic Forest, which once spanned over 300 million acres across Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Although a mere seven percent of this fragmented ecosystem remains today, its forests support some of the world’s highest levels of biodiversity, which unfortunately, are also some of the world’s most threatened. Slash and burn agriculture, extraction of birds and wildlife for illegal trade, and minimal enforcement of existing park regulations all pose significant barriers to the maintenance of this unique landscape’s ecological integrity. Together with Guyra Paraguay and Rare, IAP completed a public awareness campaign in San Rafael that developed solutions to these challenges by balancing the region’s competing needs for economic and ecological uses of the land. The campaign worked primarily with farmers, whose actions directly determine the health of the forest and its resources, to implement more sustainable agricultural methods that are already proving to be more beneficial to the region’s economy, landscape, and people.

Photo courtesy of Guyra Paraguay

The forests, wetlands, and grasslands of San Rafael provide habitat for many globally-threatened and near-threatened avian and large mammal species, as well as wintering grounds for several important Neotropical migrants, including the American Golden-Plover, Upland Sandpiper, Solitary Sandpiper, and Common Nighthawk. While the Park is federally protected and managed, many residents of the fifteen communities that surround San Rafael rely on its resources for some portion of their family’s sustenance—unsustainable farming practices being the most common. The traditional approach to land management in and around San Rafael has involved slash and burn agriculture, which decimates forests and perpetuates a cycle of unproductive land. This technique razes forests for timber sales, grows low productivity crops (namely corn) to the detriment of the already poor soil, and grazes cattle on the stressed, leveled landscape.

During this campaign, IAP, Guyra Paraguay, and Rare worked with local citizens and farmers to develop and implement feasible solutions to the challenges posed by balancing the need for resource extraction and conservation in the Park. The campaign yielded marked success in this respect—almost 100 of the engaged farmers abandoned slash and burn techniques and are now growing melons at higher economic return rates in lieu of producing corn and grazing cattle. The campaign also engaged in activities that promoted citizen involvement in Park protection, strengthened the capacities of local municipalities to enforce laws governing the Park, and highlighted the social benefits of conservation. The positive effects of these activities are visible in the community—meaningful changes to natural resource use practices in and around San Rafael are already benefitting the landscape, its wildlife, and its people. These changes include the establishment of two municipal reserves in the buffer zone, the training of dozens of locals who are now monitoring biodiversity indicators, and the strengthening of local officials’ resolve to combat the illegal wildlife trade.

Photos courtesy of Guyra Paraguay

Going forward, IAP and Guyra Paraguay will continue to enhance the capabilities of individuals and organizations in this region to increase sustainable agricultural production methods while preserving areas of key ecological importance. To this end, the partnership will build on the successes of the campaign in San Rafael to develop community cooperatives for farmers that work in and around key sites for biodiversity throughout the region. IAP and Guyra Paraguay will work closely with these cooperatives to diversify sustainable agricultural methods, which will ultimately enhance food security, provide more opportunities for economic growth, and improve natural resource management. Together, these actions will reverse current trends of environmental degradation in one of the world’s most important landscapes for biodiversity.