Latest news with #Pantanal
The Independent
17 hours ago
- The Independent
This Brazilian wildlife hotspot is cheaper than an African safari
With its elongated nose, 60cm-long tongue and wiry, feather-duster tail, it's hard to see a giant anteater as anything more than the fever dream of a desperate cartoonist. My guide Dai Scapini has bundled me out of our van in southwest Brazil, and we're watching as it swaggers across the dirt road, its white and black-banded body sashaying a bushy tail with each step. We can get so close because this creature's hearing and sight are sufficiently poor that it could do with a cane to get around. But its comedic nose makes up for these shortcomings; soon it smells us and flees into the bushes, leaving just one beady eye peering vexatiously through the undergrowth. Brazil's stunning coast hit our screens last year when it appeared in the second series of Celebrity Race Across the World. However, I've been lured to this South American country for an entirely different reason. Sometimes dubbed the Brazilian Serengeti, the Pantanal contains the highest concentration of wildlife in South America – even more so than the Amazon Jungle. And while Africa has become synonymous with safaris, more affordable Brazil has flown under the radar. Catching the Great Migration through Tanzania and Kenya or spotting the notorious 'Big Five' game animals comes with a sobering price tag: seven-day holidays rarely cost less than £3,000 per person. But Brazil has its own 'Big Five': the capybara, giant river otter, maned wolf, jaguar, and – tick – the giant anteater. With all-inclusive lodges costing from £120 per person per night, it promises an affordable alternative to a traditional safari. Much the same as the savanna of Tanzania's Serengeti, the Pantanal is a flat expanse of grassland, stippled by islands of lollypop-shaped carnauba palms and knobbly-trunked trumpet trees. And, much like Botswana's Okavango Delta, the land transforms with the seasons, flooding between May and October to become a glassy wetland twice the size of Iceland. Wildlife watching is centred around the region's farms; 95 per cent of the Pantanal lies within private land, which has been squeezed into regimented fields and planted with distinctive white zebu cattle, whose humps of muscle and fat on their necks are a local delicacy. My first stop, three and a half hours by mostly paved road from the regional airport, Campo Grande, and 20 minutes beyond our giant anteater encounter, is Pousada Pequi, a family-run lodge and working ranch. It offers homely simplicity, plus an introduction to the region's nature; burnt orange passion butterflies flutter on pink ixora bushes and blue and yellow macaws screech from the acai palms. In the early mornings and late afternoons, I hop into their jeep, whose tiered, open-air seating replicates those used for game drives in Africa, and we rattle along meandering tracks through the savannah. Giant anteaters are the lodge's main draw; however, its birdlife is legendary, too. Dai points out treetop boxes built to mimic the nests of the Pantanal's trademark bird, the hyacinth macaw. She tells me how thirty years ago, only 500 remained in the wild: 'more as a pet in the US than free in Brazil.' Macaws are particular to a fault about where they nest; deforestation of the manduvi tree meant human housebuilding was the only way to save the species. Since then, the population has exploded to 10,000; we don't have to go far before we spot these huge birds, inky blue like dusk, squabbling in the trees. I continue northwest to Fazenda San Francisco, where half of its 15,000 hectares of cattle land and rice paddies have been set aside for conservation. Dai drops a bombshell: giant river otters are possible but rare to see here, and there's no time to visit Fazenda Barranco Alto, a lodge further north where they're far easier. But I've high hopes for two more of Brazil's Big Five: the capybara and the jaguar. After all, conservationists estimate that the Pantanal contains the highest density of jaguars in the Americas — that's around 15 per cent of the world's population. I'm received by Roberta Coelho, one of the owners, who bears good news. She signals with her bamboo cane down the lodge's drive: 'Last night, a jaguar walked right down this road,' she informs me eagerly. A seven-year research project estimated that up to twenty individuals inhabit the area, attracted by easy access to their favourite foods: capybara, caiman and marsh deer. Visitors spot one nearly every night, and last night was no different. It also included two very special sightings: the normally hard-to-find ocelot, plus a maned wolf, so elusive that in 10 years of guiding, Dai has only seen one four times. There's plenty to do on the ranch while I wait. A boardwalk over a swollen river offers a stroll across a bewitching landscape of palm trees reflected in silvery water, while a sunset paddle by kayak on a small lake allows me to drift beside families of capybara, betting on a small island as a safe refuge from the night's predators. As dusk falls, we head out by jeep, using a powerful torch to scan the fields and trees marking the edges of the dirt road. Suddenly, it alights on a foxlike creature slumbering in tall grasses; it's only when it begins to unfold its great limbs that its distinctive dappled orange and black coat reveals it to be a jaguar. It pays us no heed and begins to stalk through the field, its movements fluid, almost serpentine. We hold our breath, captivated as it lifts its face towards us as if to dare us to follow, before slinking away into the gloom. Back at the ranch, I reflect on my trip. I didn't see the full five, but I'd been a whisker away from four of them. The Pantanal certainly isn't Africa, but for a wildlife experience as unique as it is affordable, few destinations can compare. Steph Dyson was hosted by Visit Pantanal. LATAM flies from London Heathrow to Campo Grande via São Paulo, from £550 return. Overnight stays at Pousada Pequi and Fazenda San Francisco start from £240 per night, all-inclusive for a double room. English-speaking guides and transfers cost extra. Wildlife watching is best between November and April during the dry season.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Not today! Alert capybara escapes stalking jaguar at last second
In the Pantanal Sul in Brazil, a jaguar crept up on a capybara during a safari tour at the end of May. But just before the big cat could strike, the capybara reacted.
Asharq Al-Awsat
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Brazil Fires Drive Acceleration in Amazon Deforestation
A record fire season in Brazil last year caused the rate of deforestation to accelerate, in a blow to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's pledge to protect the Amazon rainforest, official figures showed Friday. The figures released by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which tracks forest cover by satellite, indicated that deforestation rate between August 2024 and May 2025 rose by 9.1 percent compared to the same period in 2023-2024, said AFP. And they showed a staggering 92-percent increase in Amazon deforestation in May, compared to the year-ago period. That development risks erasing the gains made by Brazil in 2024, when deforestation slowed in all of its ecological biomes for the first time in six years. The report showed that beyond the Amazon, the picture was less alarming in other biomes across Brazil, host of this year's UN climate change conference. In the Pantanal wetlands, for instance, deforestation between August 2024 and May 2025 fell by 77 percent compared to the same period in 2023-2024. Presenting the findings, the environment ministry's executive secretary Joao Paulo Capobianco chiefly blamed the record number of fires that swept Brazil and other South American countries last year, whipped up by a severe drought. Many of the fires were started to clear land for crops or cattle and then raged out of control.
Free Malaysia Today
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Brazil fires drive acceleration in Amazon deforestation
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pledged to protect the Amazon rainforest. (AP pic) SAO PAULO : A record fire season in Brazil last year caused the rate of deforestation to accelerate, in a blow to president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's pledge to protect the Amazon rainforest, official figures showed Friday. The figures released by the national institute for space research (INPE), which tracks forest cover by satellite, indicated that deforestation rate between August 2024 and May 2025 rose by 9.1% compared to the same period in 2023-2024. And they showed a staggering 92% increase in Amazon deforestation in May, compared to the year-ago period. That development risks erasing the gains made by Brazil in 2024, when deforestation slowed in all of its ecological biomes for the first time in six years. The report showed that beyond the Amazon, the picture was less alarming in other biomes across Brazil, host of this year's UN climate change conference. In the Pantanal wetlands, for instance, deforestation between August 2024 and May 2025 fell by 77% compared to the same period in 2023-2024. Presenting the findings, the environment ministry's executive secretary Joao Paulo Capobianco chiefly blamed the record number of fires that swept Brazil and other South American countries last year, whipped up by a severe drought. Many of the fires were started to clear land for crops or cattle and then raged out of control.
The Guardian
31-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Brazil's environmental movement is under threat – and Lula is siding with oil industry
Political bullying is rarely as brutal as it was in Brazil this week when the environment minister Marina Silva was ambushed in a senate meeting. Her thuggish tormentors – all white male politicians on the infrastructure committee – took turns to publicly belittle the 67-year-old black woman, who has done more than anyone to protect the natural wealth of the country – the Amazon rainforest, Pantanal wetlands, Cerrado savannah and other biomes – from rapacious abuse. One by one, they lined up to attack her for these globally important efforts. Decorum gave way to name-calling and sneering: 'Know your place,' roared the committee head, Marcos Rogério, a Bolsonarist who cut Silva's microphone as she tried to respond. The leader of the centre-rightPSDB, Plínio Valério, told her she did not deserve respect as a minister. The Amazonas senator Omar Aziz – from the Centrão party and a supporter of president Lula – talked over her repeatedly. Their motives appeared to be partly ideological, partly misogynistic and largely self-interested. All of them were trying to force through economic projects – roads, oilfields, dams or plantations – that are under scrutiny by Silva's environment ministry. Never mind that this is her job, they seemed to say, how dare she not allow them to have their way? But she did dare. Despite her frail physique, Silva is a fighter. Born in the Amazon rainforest, she helped to found the Workers' party alongside Lula during the era of military dictatorship. She campaigned against deforestation alongside Chico Mendes, who was assassinated in 1988. In her first stint as environment minister, between 2003 and 2008, she established a monitoring-and-penalty system that she said reduced forest clearance by 80%. Later, she ran as president for the Green party, securing nearly 20m votes – more than any other Green candidate in world history. Twelve years ago, she founded her own party – the Sustainability Network. Silva refused to tolerate being abused and silenced, and walked out of the senate meeting. Outside, when she finally had a chance to speak, she turned on her tormentors: 'My place is the place to defend democracy, my place is the place to defend the environment, to combat inequality, sustainable development, to protect biodiversity, and infrastructure projects that are necessary for the country,' she said defiantly. 'What is unacceptable is for someone to think that because you are a woman, black, and come from a humble background, that you are going to say who I am and still say that I should stay in my place. My place is where all women should be.' This version of what happened has been reported widely in the Brazilian media, but it tells only part of the story. What is missing – and more important – is why the pack of senators felt Silva was vulnerable. That is because over the previous few days, Lula had taken the side of the oil industry rather than the Amazon rainforest, and then – not by coincidence – the Brazilian environmental movement suffered one of the biggest legislative defeats in its history. At the centre of everything is a long-running row over oil exploration in the Foz do Amazonas. BP and the French oil company Total used to hold most of these rights, but they baulked at the political and environmental challenge of drilling so close to the world's biggest centre of terrestrial biodiversity. Instead, Brazil's state-run oil company, Petrobras, stepped up. For Lula – and the senators in nearby regions – that meant potential votes, jobs and export earnings. The only thing standing in their way was the environment ministry, which has delayed a licence for years due to the risks of a possible spill in such an ecologically sensitive area. That handbrake was lifted earlier this week, when the head of the environmental regulator, Ibama, ignored the warnings of 29 expert advisers by moving on to the next stage of the approval process for operations in the Foz do Amazonas. This capitulation followed pressure from Congress and the president. This was followed by the biggest legislative setback for the environment in more than 40 years. To the delight of the mining, construction and farming industries, the senate has passed a long-pending bill that strips a range of environmental licensing powers from Silva's ministry. This piece of legislation – dubbed the devastation bill by opponents – allows companies to self-license or avoid environmental licensing for road construction, dam-building and other projects. It is a shift of control from the representatives of the people to the executives of big companies. Lula could yet wield a veto on this bill. But so far the president's response has been tepid. His party has a weak presence in congress, so he depends on a broad and fractious coalition, many of whose members are enmeshed in agribusiness or mining. Next year's presidential election seems to be weighing on his mind more than November's Cop30 climate summit in Belém. In the wake of the attacks on Silva by the senate infrastructure committee, Lula publicly came to her defence. He said she was right to walk out in the face of so much provocation. But he has not faced up to his responsibility for leaving her exposed. Nor has he faced up to the contradictions of his own promise to achieve zero deforestation by 2030 and his support for evidently incompatible projects, such as oil drilling off the coast of the Amazon, an upgraded BR319 road that would open up the forest between Manaus and Porto Velho to greater clearance activities, and a new grain railway that would increase pressure for more soya bean plantations. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion At the Amazon Summit in Belém two years ago, he declined to sign up to Colombian president Gustavo Petro's calls for a fossil-free rainforest. Soon after, at Cop28 in Dubai, his government shocked many of its supporters by announcing it would join the Opec+ oil cartel. Lula can argue that this is pragmatism as Brazil depends on petroleum sales for a growing share of its GDP. Fossil fuel realpolitik is likely to be evident at a Brics summit in Rio de Janeiro in July, where the Brazilian president will rub shoulders with China's Xi Jinping of China, Russia's Vladimir Putin, India's Narendra Modi and other world leaders. Lula has thrown Marina Silva under a cement mixer once before – in 2008, when she was forced to leave his second-term government because too many ministers saw her as a drag on economic development. He may feel reluctant to do so again before Cop30, because he knows she is vital for Brazil's environmental credibility in the eyes of much of the world, and he does not want his country to return to the pariah status it endured during the Bolsonaro years. But the sands are shifting and Lula seems unsure of his footing. His base – the working class and poor – are already suffering the brunt of climate impacts. The south of Brazil has been deluged by devastating floods. The northern Amazon has been stricken by record droughts and fires. Civil society and progressive thinkers – almost all of whom usually support Lula – have been far more active than the president in opposing the devastation bill and defending the environment minister on social media, where many public figures have posted 'Marina is not alone' messages of support. But like many other centre left leaders in the world, Lula is struggling in the age of Trump, of rightwing extremism, of warmongering, of geopolitical realignment and corporate backtracking on the environment. As Silva showed, it takes courage to face those forces. Lula has often stood by her in that fight, but does he still have the stomach and the inclination to continue?
