The World Conferences on Preservation and Sustainable Development in the Pantanal

In February of 1999, the World Conference on Preservation and Sustainable Development in the Pantanal convened in Washington D.C. What immediately struck me about this meeting was first, that in happened 15 years ago in the U.S.! As we have talked about in class, most people haven't really heard about the Pantanal, but it seems like it was on the radar of some pretty big organizations and important scientists awhile ago, which is great. Second, I was impressed to learn that participants in the convention represented 41 nations! It is cool to see that so many different people agree that this ecosystem, considered by many to be the world's largest wetland, deserved international recognition and action to make sure that it continued to exist and be a healthy functioning ecosystem.

I looked a bit through the schedule of the conference and topics of the many talks that were given over the course of the 3 day meeting and was pleased to see that many of the talks, as well as the titles of many of the sessions, were very similar to many of the themes and topics that we have been exploring in class recently. Sessions focused on issues ranging from the ecological status and health of the Pantanal, the relationship because economic development and environmental preservation, the sustainable development of water resources and the path towards sustainably establishing an ecotourism industry in the area.

Looking around a little more I found that in fact there was second conference in October of the same year! For another weekend, scientists, organization leaders and government officials from 34 countries reunited to continue the important discussion on the future of the Pantanal. Many of the topics from the first meeting were discussed further, but new issues such as law enforcement and comparisons to other wetland ecosystems were also included.

All in all these meetings seemed like all of our Pantanal Prefield classes condensed into one intensive weekend! Seems like quite a bit of fun to me actually =P. Maybe after we come back we can submit a talk to give at the 3rd (yet to be organized) World Conference on Preservation and Sustainable Development in the Pantanal. Finally, one of Dr. Bob's books about the Pantanal actually includes article versions of many of the talks given at these conferences, so if you are interested in looking at some of the topics they discussed I would recommend borrowing the book for a few days to peruse some of the articles which are pretty interesting!

Cole