Paraguay Nature: Pantanal, Chaco, and the Gran Chaco Wilderness
Paraguay straddles two of the most ecologically significant biomes in South America: the eastern region is part of the interior Atlantic Forest, one of the most biodiverse and most threatened forest ecosystems on Earth; and the western Chaco region is part of the Gran Chaco, the vast dry forest and scrub ecosystem that extends through Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil and is the second largest forested area in South America after the Amazon. The Chaco Boreal of Paraguay, covering approximately 60 percent of the national territory, is the most sparsely populated major ecosystem on Earth with indigenous Mennonite and other communities inhabiting a landscape of extreme heat, thornscrub, and seasonal flooding. The Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland, extends its southern reaches into the northeastern corner of Paraguay.
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The Gran Chaco: One of the Last Wild Places
The Paraguayan Chaco, formally the Chaco Boreal, covers the vast flat territory west of the Paraguay River that comprises approximately 60 percent of the national territory but houses only about 3 percent of the population. The landscape is a mosaic of dry thornscrub, gallery forest along rivers, salt flats, and seasonal grassland that floods dramatically in the rainy season and bakes to a cracked, dusty expanse in the dry season; temperatures regularly reach 45 degrees Celsius in summer, making it one of the hottest inhabited places on Earth outside the Sahara and Arabian deserts. The Chaco is the last stronghold in South America for several large mammals including the giant armadillo, the giant anteater, the maned wolf, the puma, the jaguar, and the tapir; the low human population density has preserved vertebrate communities that have been eliminated from more accessible landscapes. The indigenous peoples of the Chaco, including the Ayoreo, Ishir, Nivacle, and other groups, have inhabited this environment for thousands of years with detailed knowledge of its resources; the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode in the deeper Chaco were the last uncontacted indigenous group in South America outside the Amazon basin, with some families making first contact with the outside world as recently as 2004. The rapid deforestation of the Chaco for soy agriculture from the 2000s onward represents one of the fastest deforestation rates in the world outside the Amazon.
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The Paraguayan Pantanal: Jaguars and River Wildlife
The Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland covering approximately 150,000 square kilometers across Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay, extends its Paraguayan section into the northeastern corner of the country in the departments of Alto Paraguay and Concepción. The Paraguayan Pantanal, while smaller than the Brazilian section, shares the extraordinary wildlife diversity that makes the biome one of the premier wildlife destinations in the world: jaguars are more visible in the Pantanal than anywhere else in the Americas due to the combination of high prey density and the open water and grassland habitat that allows sighting from boats. Giant river otters, capybaras, giant anteaters, marsh deer, and caimans are abundant; the bird diversity includes the jabiru stork, the hyacinth macaw, the giant kingfisher, and hundreds of species. The Paraguayan side of the Pantanal is significantly less visited and less developed for tourism than the Brazilian Pantanal of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, making it more remote and less accessible but also offering experiences with fewer other visitors. The town of Bahia Negra in the far north of Paraguay, accessible by a long rough road or by river boat, is the primary access point for the Paraguayan Pantanal; from there, private ranch stays and river trips provide wildlife viewing opportunities.
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Cerro Cora National Park: Battlefield and Cloud Forest
Cerro Cora National Park in the Amambay department of northeastern Paraguay, near the border with Brazil, is the site of the final battle of the War of the Triple Alliance where Paraguayan President Francisco Solano Lopez was killed on March 1, 1870, ending the war. The park encompasses both the historic battlefield with its monuments and interpretive markers and a fragment of subtropical forest that covers the rocky hills of the Cerro Cora and the adjacent Cerro Muralla, providing habitat for wildlife including pumas, tapirs, and hundreds of bird species in a forest environment very different from the flat Chaco to the west. The Cerro Cora is the most visited national park in Paraguay partly because of its historical significance and partly because its northeastern location makes it accessible from the Brazilian border towns that provide the most convenient international entry point for visitors to the region. The park contains cave paintings of the Aché indigenous people who inhabited this section of the interior forest before and after the Spanish conquest; the paintings are protected within the park boundaries but accessible to visitors with guides. The combination of historical, cultural, and natural values at Cerro Cora is unique in the Paraguayan protected area system.
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Mennonite Colonies of the Chaco: A Unique Cultural Landscape
The Mennonite communities of the Paraguayan Chaco, founded by successive waves of Mennonite immigration from Russia and Canada beginning in the 1920s and continuing through the 1950s and beyond, have transformed portions of the dry Chaco into some of the most productive dairy and beef cattle farming land in Paraguay, using sophisticated irrigation and land management techniques developed over decades in the extreme environment. The three main Mennonite colonies of Filadelfia, Loma Plata, and Neu-Halbstadt in the central Chaco house approximately 15,000 Mennonite residents who maintain a distinct Low German dialect, conservative religious practices, and a community-centered social structure while integrating their products into the Paraguayan national economy; the Mennonite cooperatives are among the largest dairy producers and beef exporters in Paraguay. The Mennonite communities have coexisted with the indigenous peoples of the Chaco, including the Nivaclé and Enlhet communities, in relationships that have involved both positive cooperation and the same patterns of land displacement that characterize indigenous-settler relations across the region. The town of Filadelfia, the main Mennonite center, is accessible from Asuncion by road through the Chaco and offers a genuinely unusual cultural tourism experience in its combination of European-Germanic architecture, subtropical landscape, and Guarani indigenous community proximity.
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River Fish of the Paraguay and Parana: A Gastronomic Ecosystem
The Paraguay and Parana river system that forms the eastern and western boundaries of Paraguay is one of the most productive freshwater fish ecosystems in the world, and the relationship between the Paraguayan population and the rivers has shaped both the culture and the economy for thousands of years. The surubi, the tiger-striped catfish reaching over a meter in length and prized for its firm white flesh, is the premium Paraguayan river fish and the centerpiece of riverside restaurant menus along the Costanera. The pacú, a large fruit-eating fish related to the piranha, is prized for its fatty flesh that grills exceptionally well. The dorado, a large golden-scaled predatory fish, is the premier freshwater sport fish of the Parana and is pursued by sport fishers from around the world on float fishing trips on the Parana and its tributaries. The piranha, found in the Parana and its tributaries in Paraguay, is a minor food fish and a significant cultural reference in the international imagination of Paraguayan rivers; the reality is that piranha attacks on humans are rare and the fish itself, while genuine, is far less dangerous in practice than its reputation suggests. The fish market of Asuncion, operating at the port area along the Paraguay River, receives the daily catch from river fishers and is the best place in the city to see the full range of Paraguayan river fish.
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Iguazu Falls from the Paraguayan Side: Ciudad del Este and Itaipu
The Iguazu Falls system, shared between Argentina and Brazil with the Argentine side generally considered the superior viewpoint, is accessible from Paraguay via the city of Ciudad del Este, the Paraguayan commercial hub on the triple border with Brazil and Argentina. Ciudad del Este, a major commercial free trade zone known for electronics, alcohol, and consumer goods sold at prices below neighboring countries, is the second-largest city in Paraguay and a destination for Brazilian and Argentine shopping tourists; the city itself is not a tourism destination in the conventional sense but serves as the gateway for Paraguayan visitors to the Brazilian Foz do Iguacu side of the falls. The Itaipu Dam, on the Parana River between Paraguay and Brazil near Ciudad del Este, is the second-largest hydroelectric power station in the world by electricity production and the largest bilateral infrastructure project in history between the two countries; it supplies approximately 17 percent of Brazilian and 75 percent of Paraguayan electricity needs. The dam offers organized tours of its massive structure, with the engineering scale of the project visible in the 196-meter concrete wall holding back the Parana River. The Itaipu lake above the dam has flooded approximately 1,500 square kilometers of Paraguayan and Brazilian territory, displacing communities and submerging the original Sete Quedas waterfalls that were larger in volume than Iguazu before the dam construction.