Rebuilding efforts underway after devastating fires rage through Argentina’s northern wetlands

The Iberá wetlands in northern Argentina is a seemingly magical place where endangered marsh deer step silently through still waters.

Huge docile rodents, known as capybara, graze along the grassy shores, while alligators wait motionless among the reeds and marsh weeds pushed up from the cool waters. It’s the world’s second-largest wetlands — home to hundreds of birds and endangered species.

But for the last two months, the area has been engulfed by flames.

Videos shared online show huge lines of orange blazes enveloping the ecosystem. Firemen stand on the side of a road, preparing for action, as huge plumes of ash and smoke spill into the air.

The ongoing drought in South America has led to wildfires in the wetlands. Firefighters now have them largely under control in northern Argentina, but with climate change, and the cattle industry, wildfires are increasingly expected to be a threat to nature and wildlife in the region.

“I’ve never seen a drought like this. I’ve never seen the Iberá water level so low.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Walter Javier Drews, a 59-year-old park ranger who has spent many days over the last two months personally fighting the blazes. “I’ve never seen a drought like this. I’ve never seen the Iberá water level so low.”

Drews said that the water is about 3 feet below its normal levels. Whole areas that are usually soaked in water have become dry and exposed.

After two years of drought, and two months of intense heat compounded by little rain, the usually moist swamp grass became abundant fuel for the fires, which spread quickly without anything to stop them.

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“Every year, we have some fires. But this year, every one of the areas where our organization works were on fire at the same time,” said Talia Zamboni, a biologist with Rewilding Argentina, a conservation organization that works to reintroduce native species, including jaguars, anteaters and the scarlet macaw.

The fires have destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of protected areas. Part of that area is made up of the National Park, which constitutes the smallest of three conservation zones in the area. More than half of that park, around 60%, was burned by the fires. Another area, the Provincial Park, lost just over 13% to the blazes.

Meanwhile, the full impact on the wildlife there remains unknown.

“We don’t have an estimation of the animals dead,” Zamboni said. “We’ve seen some of the most abundant animals in the park, like alligators or capybara, dead, or found some of the injured sustaining serious burns. We also found yellow anaconda in the same situation.”

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Zamboni said some of the reintroduced species were injured or killed, but that they were also able to rescue many animals, including river otters, musk hogs, jaguars and macaws.

Most of the blazes are now under control after being relieved by heavy rains last week. And Zamboni and those on the ground are now shifting gears from months of fighting the fires to finally getting a chance to rebuild.

“If these animals come in, they trample everything and compete with the local ecosystem for scant resources.”

“Right now, the most important thing is fixing the fences that were burned by the fires — to stop cows from coming into the reserve from neighboring cattle ranches,” Zamboni said. “If these animals come in, they trample everything and compete with the local ecosystem for scant resources.”

This region of Argentina is known as cow country. There are nearly 5 million cows across the state. And they’re the largest source of income, with cattle ranches surrounding the Iberá wetlands.

And they are, in part, to blame for the devastating fires.

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Many of the blazes were started by neighboring cattle ranchers clearing their pasturelands. It’s a practice that goes back centuries. Under normal circumstances, their fires would be extinguished quickly by the normally waterlogged ecosystem. But not anymore.

“Many of the fires could have been avoided.”

“Many of the fires could have been avoided,” park ranger Drews said. “We need to educate people to respect some basic rules when they are setting fire to their fields and when cattle ranchers use fire to clear their land.”

He also said that they need firewalls around the conservation area, and they need to train local teams of firemen.

That is because this will happen again, said biologist Sofía Heinonen, the director of Rewilding Argentina.

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“Climate change in the state of Corrientes is real. You feel it,” she said. “In the last 20 years, there have been three historic droughts and each time, they are worse, more extreme. So, clearly, we have to change our way of doing things.”

Heinonen said that Iberá is fortunate to be large enough that many native species will quickly repopulate the areas that were charred.

And that’s already starting to happen. Meanwhile, buds are flowering and native grass is already growing back in some places.

“We are rebuilding,” said María Isabel Brouchoud, the owner of Cabañas Camba Cua, a cabin and camp site in the town of Carlos Pellegrini that lost a pier and a nature-viewing overlook to the fires in January. “The beautiful thing is that, with the help of the rain that fell last week, the grass is already coming back.”

Drews said that it pays off to be ready for the next wildfires: “We can’t avoid fire, but we can avoid it being so serious. We need to prepare.”