In the Wilds of South America, Conservation Comes From Unlikely Sources

From ranches to forest settlements, local stewardship is shaping the future of the Chaco-Pantanal region

Authors: John Briley

Ranch hands herd cattle at Fazenda Bela Vista in the Brazilian Pantanal. The work can be grueling, especially in hot weather, and these caballeros, many of whom come to the ranch from the city of Cuiaba, are often away from their families for more than a month at a time.

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Trust Article February 4, 2026

Cattle Ranchers

In the Brazilian Pantanal, a vast and rugged wetland rife with jaguars, caimans, giant river otters, venomous snakes, and kaleidoscopic birds, one animal holds the key to the future: the humble cow.

Which means that cattle ranchers will play an outsized role in determining whether the Pantanal’s dazzling biodiversity will survive the 21st

Two men in wide-brimmed hats stand and sit along a fence at sunrise while several saddled horses rest nearby in a misty pasture, with warm early-morning light illuminating the rural scene. — Ranch hands attend their daily morning meeting at Fazenda Barranco Alto in the Aquidauana region of the Brazilian Pantanal. The property is both a working cattle ranch and ecotourism lodge, a duality that owner Camilla Schweizer says is helping to educate visitors on the economic and ecological value of healthy landscapes and habitat.

The Pantanal is a spongy basin of grasslands, marsh, and tropical forest where accumulated rainfall can linger for months, seeping slowly into the ground or inching downslope toward the Paraguay River. As the world’s largest tropical wetland, it covers 68,000 square miles (176,000 square kilometers)—an area almost 16 times larger than the Everglades—in south-central Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay.

The Pew Charitable Trusts is working to advance conservation of this region and the neighboring Gran Chaco dry forest—an even larger area composed of woodlands, savannas, and wetlands that spans Bolivia, Argentina, and Paraguay. Gran Chaco is the continent’s second-largest forest behind the Amazon and covers 250,000 square miles (647,500 square kilometers).

Aerial view of a lone vehicle driving along a narrow dirt road that cuts through green wetlands and scrubby forest, lit by warm late-afternoon sunlight under a wide sky. — A patrol vehicle rolls through Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco National Park in the Gran Chaco dry forest of Bolivia. To help protect this vast park, rangers spend their days checking camera traps, tracking wildlife, and watching for poachers.

The Chaco-Pantanal faces mounting threats from increased development and a rapidly shifting climate, and experts say time is short to implement changes to help preserve this stunning, meditative landscape.

A Pew team recently visited the region, its SUV rattling down the potholed dirt track of the Transpantaneira Highway, south of Poconé, Brazil, where the scenery suggests a massive national park: Curtains of vegetation meld into endless acres of forest, grassland, and the still, glassy waters of the marsh while an array of colorful birds swoop above.

However, this is not a protected area; it’s ranchland. Some 90% of the Pantanal is privately owned cattle ranches, which itself is remarkable. Aside from the challenge of transporting livestock into and out of this region, ranchers must navigate a December-through-March rainy season, often marked by intense flooding, and a sometimes more perilous fire season.

A boat glides through giant water lilies, some up to 10 feet in diameter, in the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland. The lilies are pollinated by beetles that are attracted to the plant’s fragrant, white flowers, which open only at night. The Pantanal faces numerous threats, including from development and a shifting climate, the latter of which has fueled increasingly destructive fires in the region.

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Together, the Pantanal and Gran Chaco form a contiguous habitat that’s a major source of fresh water for South Americans, a thriving zone of biodiversity, and an immense carbon sink, sequestering huge amounts of carbon dioxide. The abundance and concentration in variety of flora and fauna here—nearly 7,000 plant types and more than 2,100 animal species—rival those of the Amazon.

The Pantanal boasts one of the highest densities of jaguars in Latin America—roughly one per 2,965 acres—and more than 10 million caiman, the largest population in the world.

The Pantanal and Gran Chaco are also home to dozens of Indigenous peoples who faced centuries of conflict and displacement before gaining recognition as rightful landowners. In 2017 these groups formed the Indigenous Autonomous Government of the Charagua Iyambae Territory, which is formally recognized by the Bolivian government and has become a leader in regional conservation.

The People

The threats to Chaco-Pantanal add urgency to the need for better conservation: deforestation by illegal settlers in the Gran Chaco and the expansion of industrial agriculture, which inflicts more damage on the natural environment than traditional ranching; poorly planned infrastructure, such as roads cutting through protected areas of intact forest; wildfires; and disruptions to river systems, including dam construction and water diversion projects.

Aerial view of a wide river cutting through dense green forest, with a long bridge crossing the water and dirt roads branching into surrounding woodland. — A train track crosses the Parapetí River in the Gran Chaco region of Bolivia. The river, which originates in the eastern Andes, is the center of life for many communities in the Gran Chaco region, providing food, water, and, in the dry season, a respite from the heat.

A diverse group of adults and children stand hand in hand in a large circle on a dirt clearing near a small rural building, participating in a community gathering beneath scattered trees. — Women in the Kapeatindi community, within the territory of the Charagua Iyambae Guaraní Government in the Gran Chaco dry forest of Bolivia, perform a celebration dance to thank the nearby Parapetí River for providing water and food.

Overhanging all of this is a shifting climate, which is causing drastic fluctuations in rainfall during wet months and soaring temperatures and raging wildfires in the dry season. In fact, the 2019 fire in Gran Chaco was horrific, burning millions of acres and affecting every community and settlement in the region. And fires spanning the Chaco-Pantanal in 2020, 2023, and 2024 left the region reeling, part of a worrisome trend.

On a baking Pantanal morning the Pew team follows a dirt track through dense forest to Fazenda Bela Vista, a 12,000-hectare (29,653-acre) ranch where owner Márcio Granja Souza Vieira and his wife, Rudce Fátima Dorileo, manage 3,000 head of cattle.

Márcio Granja Souza Vieira, center, owns Fazenda Bela Vista, a 12,000-hectare (29,653-acre) ranch in the Pantanal, and works with representatives of Fazenda Pantaneira Sustentável (Sustainable Pantanal Farms), a program that is advancing sustainable cattle ranching throughout the region.

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Over a breakfast of fresh fruit and grilled meat, Vieira says the ranch has been in operation, with different owners, for 150 years.

Since 2019, Bela Vista has been one of more than 90 ranches in Fazenda Pantaneira Sustentável (Sustainable Pantanal Farms, or FPS), a program that is advancing sustainable cattle ranching throughout the Pantanal in numerous ways, including promoting low-impact grazing, which spreads cattle out across pastures. This is one reason that 80% of the region’s native vegetation has survived.

A person wearing a brimmed hat cooks over a wood-fired stove inside a rustic brick open-air kitchen, tending a flame beneath metal pots while smoke rises toward the ceiling. — A cook at Fazenda Bela Vista stokes a fire in the ranch’s open-air kitchen. Bela Vista is one of a growing number of Pantanal ranches practicing low-impact cattle ranching in hopes of preserving habitat that supports an array of wildlife, including jaguars, wood storks, and rare marsh deer.

There are other steps that FPS ranchers take to safeguard native wildlife habitat—for example, they don’t use chemicals—and they exchange knowledge to strengthen their commitment to conservation while maintaining their livelihoods. By providing technical support, fire prevention strategies, and access to sustainable production chains, the program is emerging as a model for how cattle ranching and ecosystem protection can advance together.

For Vieira, the conservation makes good business sense.

“FPS has been very good for us, both in managing our cattle and our pasture,” he says. “We are learning through this program, and it’s helping us all.”

Like most Pantanal ranchers, Vieira focuses on raising calves, which he then sells to feedlots in Cuiabá, Campo Grande, or Corumbá, where they’re fattened up for slaughter.

A small herd of white cattle gathers beside a muddy pond in open grassland, while a ranch worker on horseback approaches from the left amid scattered trees under a blue sky. — Like most of the nearly 4 million head of cattle in the Pantanal, these young cows will be sold to feedlots in neighboring cities, where they’ll be fattened up to their full size before slaughter. Around 95% of the Pantanal is private land, and most of that is ranchland, making ranchers critical partners in the effort to protect the region’s biodiversity.

Two ranch hands work amid a large herd of cattle in a dusty corral. They both reach toward a bull while one restrains a calf on the ground, with dozens of cattle clustered behind them under scattered trees. — Ranch hands work to corral a bull during a roundup at Fazenda Bela Vista. The ranch is one of a growing number in the Pantanal that voluntarily abide by conservation standards to help preserve the region's abundant wildlife and natural habitat.

Within this business model lies a significant issue: The roughly 5,000 jaguars that reside in the Pantanal—one of the highest concentrations on Earth—won’t hesitate to take livestock, and young cows are the easiest pickings. In fact, ranchers here typically lose 5% of their herds to jaguar attacks annually.

This has generated controversy in the ranching community: Some ranchers are willing to endure the losses for the sake of biodiversity, while others are inclined to shoot the cats on sight—despite laws protecting them. Like apex predators anywhere, the jaguars in the Chaco-Pantanal help to keep the ecosystem—and populations of their prey—in balance, and here they are also the centerpiece in a burgeoning wildlife tourism industry.

Tourism

Following the Transpantaneira Highway to Porto Jofre, the Pew group arrives at a collection of tourism outfitters and research centers on the banks of the Cuiabá River and alights at the modest campus of Panthera, a nonprofit devoted to conservation of the world’s 40 wild cat species.

At dawn, Panthera conservation scientist Fernando Tortato steers a small motorboat into the currents of the Cuiabá River heading into Encontro Das Águas State Park on a quest to spot jaguars in what has become one of the easiest places in the world to do so. Many of the cats in this region, while fully wild, have become habituated to humans, meaning they’ve learned not to fear the boats traveling up and down the river or the people on them.

A jaguar sits partially concealed in tall grass and leafy vegetation, its spotted coat blending into the shadows as it looks directly toward the camera with alert, focused eyes. — A jaguar peers from the brush on the banks of the Cuiabá River near Encontro das Águas State Park in the Pantanal. This area has one of the highest concentrations of these cats in the world, and as a result is home to a booming wildlife tourism industry.

A human hand is placed beside a large paw print pressed into dry soil, highlighting the size and shape of the track amid scattered leaves and twigs on the ground. — A jaguar pawprint in the mud on the banks of the Cuiaba River shows what science has already concluded: Due to an abundance of large prey, Pantanal jaguars are among the biggest in the world, with adult males reaching up to 300 pounds.

After a couple of false alarms—a jaguar that fishermen had seen on the south bank has since moseyed off—Tortato maneuvers the boat up a small tributary. “There!” he exclaims, siting a jaguar that is preening her head above the surface as she finishes the 150-foot swim across the creek. She pulls herself onto the shore, that iconic gold-and-black fur striking against the lime-green reeds, and moves unhurriedly into the forest.

Tortato says that in the June-to-September high season, 20 or more boats often crowd in for views of a cat, each vessel carrying a half-dozen paying customers. And even when the jaguars are scarce, the Pantanal’s other wildlife shines: giant river otters, caimans, capybaras, and capuchin monkeys, along with a dizzying array of bird species.

Boats carry people over a river in the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland. The Pantanal faces numerous threats, including from development and a shifting climate, the latter of which has fueled increasingly destructive fires in the region.

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The nature here can seem so grand as to be invincible. But Tortato recounts working in the field in 2020 following a catastrophic fire season.

“The soundscape was silent—no birds, nothing. I’m thinking, ‘The Pantanal as we know it is over.’ But I was also tracking a jaguar we had rescued and released, and I found an anaconda carcass, one he had killed. And I thought, ‘OK, he’s assuming his role in the ecosystem again.’ That showed me the resilience of the Pantanal. We aren’t back to full health, but it’s continued to recover.”

Fernando Tortato, a conservation scientist with the nongovernmental organization Panthera, uses a handheld antenna to track a jaguar near Porto Jofre, Brazil. Tortato and other scientists have fitted many jaguars in this area with radio collars. The cats are habituated to boats traveling along the rivers but are otherwise wild, a dichotomy that helps support the wildlife tourism industry here.

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To the untrained eye, the ecosystem appears to be thriving—a good thing, but even with a full recovery, this park won’t save the region’s biodiversity: Encontro Das Águas occupies only a sliver of the Pantanal, which is why the main effort is to bring as many ranchers as possible into the conservation community.

In addition to working with ranchers, conservation efforts in the Pantanal must include effectively managing and expanding existing protected areas and designating new ones. Because even though these areas account for only a small slice of the Pantanal now, they provide exceptional wildlife habitat and are therefore key to the health of the broader ecosystem.

Two giant river otters rest on a muddy riverbank, their sleek brown bodies stretching toward the water as they look alertly into the surrounding greenery. — Giant river otters are among the many rare species that make their home in the Pantanal and help bolster the region’s wildlife tourism industry. These playful creatures, which eat mostly fish, spend ample time on and near the banks of the Cuiaba River and its tributaries.

A young caiman’s head and upper body emerge from shallow water among reeds and grasses, its textured, dark-patterned scales visible as it floats quietly at the wetland’s edge. — A young caiman glides through a marsh in the Pantanal, one of the most biologically rich regions on Earth, with more than 4,700 species of plants and animals. Caimans are both predator and prey here and are often attacked by jaguars that drop from tree branches overhanging the water.

Still, the big focus is working with private landowners to improve conservation efforts. “If we lose the ranchers, the parks will mean nothing,” says Andre Restel, a researcher with Pontes Pantaneiras, a Brazil-based conservation coalition. “Now we have 4% of the land area covered by FPS ranches; the goal is to have 15% by 2035.”

And because the Pantanal and Gran Chaco are one contiguous habitat, what happens to jaguars in one region could affect biodiversity in the other. At the same time, each biome is distinct.

André Restel Camilo, an ecologist and advocate with the coalition Pontes Pantaneiras (Pantanal Bridges), works with ranchers throughout the region to help show them that good conservation practices can help them sustain their businesses for the long term.

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“When you step into the Chaco, the music changes, the ways of life, the cultural expressions—it’s all unique,” says Natalia Araujo, a manager with Pew’s Chaco-Pantanal conservation project in Bolivia. “This creates an incredible connection between the natural ecosystem and the locals.”

In 2019, the Indigenous Autonomous Government of the Charagua district established the 1.27 million-hectare (3.1 million-acre) Ñembi Guasu conservation area, about 255 miles southeast of Santa Cruz. Ñembi Guasu sits among a few national parks—including Kaa-Iya in Bolivia and Defensores del Chaco in Paraguay—to form the largest protected area in the Chaco, at nearly 9 million hectares (22 million acres).

Two people crouch beside a shallow, muddy river, talking and gesturing as they examine the riverbank, with green forest and low mountains rising in the background. — Natalia Araujo (right), Bolivia manager for Pew’s Chaco-Pantanal conservation project, speaks with Zulema Barahona of the nongovernmental organization Fundación Natura next to Charagua Creek in the Gran Chaco region. Although the Gran Chaco and neighboring Pantanal face distinct conservation challenges, they form a contiguous ecosystem, which Pew is working to protect as a whole.

Aerial view of a winding river cutting through a vast green landscape, where open wetlands transition into dense forest, stretching toward a flat horizon under a pale sky. — The San Miguel River wends through the Ñembi Guasu Indigenous Protected Area, one of the most biodiverse portions in Bolivia’s Gran Chaco region. The protected area is home to jaguars, giant anteaters, maned wolves, and other endemic species.

Alejandro Arambiza Segundo directs the Ñembi Guasu protected area, managing a half dozen Indigenous rangers. “My job here is to spread the word [to our communities] about the management plan, what to do and what not to do, so that they don't make any fires, and we don't burn our forest,” Arambiza says.

A uniformed park ranger stands at a metal gate across a dirt road, holding it while opening or closing it, with scrubby forest and bright blue sky surrounding the entrance to a protected area. — Alejandro Arambiza Segundo, a ranger in Ñembi Guasu Indigenous Protected Area secures a gate leading into Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco National Park. These areas encompass some of the best-preserved tracts of the Gran Chaco dry forest, with abundant wildlife and a well-balanced ecosystem.

A charred tree trunk stands amid regrowing green vegetation, with scorched branches and fresh leaves visible against a blue sky, suggesting wildfire damage and recovery. — Wildfires in 2019 devastated huge portions of the Ñembi Guasu Indigenous Protected Area, including many human settlements. The Bolivian government credits a dedicated wildfire-fighting brigade—created by the Indigenous Autonomous Government of the Charagua—with helping to control and eventually extinguish this wildfire.

He’s referring to illegal settlers who, in their quest for viable ranchland, often use fire to clear vast areas—fires that can rage out of control. This is similar to what has happened with illegal farmers and loggers in the Amazon, and the effects on the ecosystem can be devastating.

To counter this threat, Pew joined with local and international partners to train a firefighting force, made up largely of Indigenous rangers, which the Indigenous Autonomous Government calls the guardians of the forest.

A group of wildfire firefighters in yellow protective gear and helmets stand together outdoors, listening as one firefighter gestures and explains a plan during a briefing near a small building. — Guaraní and Chiquitano Indigenous rangers conduct a wildfire response drill near the community of Roboré, outside the entrance to the Ñembi Guasu Protected Area in Bolivia's Gran Chaco region. Fire is a significant—and increasing—threat in both the Chaco and Pantanal.

A person in a yellow firefighting jacket looks at a laptop displaying a map of South America marked with numerous red dots, indicating active or recent wildfire hot spots on a fire-monitoring system. — A member of the wildfire response unit from the Guaraní and Chiquitano Indigenous community monitors fire activity in the Gran Chaco region. The brigade combines Indigenous knowledge on wildfire behavior with current science to help protect people, wildlife, and habitat.

The massive 2019 fire, Arambiza says, trapped animals, incinerated their food, and fouled their water. “All this is lost when there is fire. Fire spreads quickly, and the animals cannot run away. But [our area] was not burned because the guardians of the forest were already trained to face the fires. Our ancestors have been taking care of this area since ancient times.”

The Indigenous communities of the Chaco sustain themselves in a variety of ways, including hunting, fishing, and farming and by selling wood carvings and weavings. They practice respect for nature, for example by using mostly deadfall for their woodwork.

An Indigenous person works at a wooden loom weaving threads by hand, her expression focused as she passes colored yarn through the frame in an outdoor setting. — Women weavers from the Kapeatindi community in Charagua Iyambae, in the Gran Chaco dry forest of Bolivia, make handbags using traditional Guaraní techniques. Sales of these and other handicrafts to tourists bring revenue and a sense of pride to the community.

An hour-long flight takes the Pew team to the southern reaches of the Pantanal, Aquidauana—a subregion of wetlands, sandy savannas, and dense stands of forest—to see rancher Teresa Bracher, who owns Fazenda Fazendinha.

“When I was a girl growing up on my father’s farm, I had a dream of one day having my own,” says Bracher. “A place where all the animals roamed free in wild nature.” Bracher, whose husband ran a bank in Brazil, represents another model of conservation here: leveraging personal wealth to protect substantial chunks of land and support community development.

Teresa Bracher rides in the back of an all-terrain vehicle on her Pantanal ranch, Fazenda Fazendinha. Bracher is an active, hands-on philanthropist in the region, building community schools, serving with numerous nonprofit organizations, and encouraging fellow ranchers to help protect nature in the Pantanal.

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Bracher owns other ranches in the Pantanal, and Fazendinha is her childhood dream come true. As dawn breaks over the red terracotta roofs and tiled courtyards of the ranch, dozens of cows move like apparitions through the mist. A family of capybaras ambles from a nearby lake and a half-dozen toucans alight in a sprawling neem tree, their bizarre beaks electrified in the morning sun.

Bracher knows that for conservation to work, the people of the Pantanal must see a viable future here, which is why she also founded and directs Acaia Pantanal, a nonprofit dedicated to social and human development in the region. Among other initiatives, the organization built a 60-student boarding school within an hour’s drive—a sorely needed service in such a remote region where the ranchers work dawn to dusk, leaving little time to educate their children on their own.

A misty pasture at sunrise, with fence posts stretching across the foreground and a cluster of tall palm trees silhouetted against an orange and purple sky on the horizon. — A pasture is enveloped in dawn mist at Fazenda Fazendinha, a ranch in the Aquidauana region of the Pantanal. The ranch is also home to wild capybaras, caimans, toucans, hyacinth macaws, and other species—all of which thrive here because of conservation actions by ranch owner Teresa Bracher.

The challenge is similar in the Gran Chaco, where the Indigenous Autonomous Government must show locals—and the national government—that the long-term benefits of a sustainable, well-protected environment far outweigh the potential short-term gain of slash-and-burn settlements.

A teacher in jeans and a white t-shirt stands at the front of a small classroom, raising their hand as they speak, while young students in white school uniforms sit at desks listening and participating, with daylight streaming through an open doorway. — A teacher leads students through a lesson at a newly renovated boarding school on Fazenda Tupancireta, in the Aquiduana region of the Pantanal. Ranch owner and philanthropist Teresa Bracher had the school, which can accommodate up to 60 children, built after conducting extensive research that showed a need for better community education.

Fazenda Barranco Alto, an FPS-member ranch and tourist lodge on a bluff above the Rio Negro, near the southern edge of the Pantanal, shows what success can look like here. As dawn breaks over the property, a dozen caballeros (ranch hands) run through yoga poses in a pavilion before setting about their work. An hour later a family from Sao Paulo, on their third vacation to the lodge, heads out for a day of kayaking and horseback riding. And seemingly without pause, owner Camilla Schweizer bustles about, shifting her unflinching enthusiasm from cattle wrangling to small-business management to what she calls “contemplative tourism.”

An adult and a child ride horses side by side along a dirt path beneath a sign reading “Barranco Alto,” with palm trees and fenced pastureland in the background. — A father and daughter set out on a horseback ride from Fazenda Barranco Alto, a ranch and ecotourism lodge on the banks of the Rio Negro in the Brazilian Pantanal. The tourism side of the business, which includes kayaking, night walks, and motorboat rides on the river, helps visitors see how responsible stewardship of the area’s wildlife habitat benefits nature and people.

Aerial view of a rural settlement surrounded by open grassland and wetlands, with clusters of low buildings, dirt roads, scattered trees, and shallow blue ponds stretching across a flat landscape to the horizon. — The Tupancireta School, on the eponymous ranch in the Pantanal, welcomes students from around the surrounding area. “Many have no education opportunities,” school owner Teresa Bracher says. “If they’re born here, they’ll simply grow up to work on their parents’ farms, and it’s better if we can provide them with some options.”

“We find ways for guests to immerse themselves in nature and see what nature has to show us, not the other way around,” Schweizer says as two hyacinth macaws swoop above, their blue feathers dazzling.

“I've seen the changes—the droughts and fires—and that's why I give my life for this place today. By joining forces with the ranchers, the government, everybody, we will succeed in protecting it all, but it's a race against time. And we have to run very, very fast.”