ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with environmental pressures in the context of the South American Pantanal, where the repeated failure to tackle the loss and degradation of ecosystems has seriously undermined the progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty, combating hunger, and increasing environmental sustainability. It aims to briefly describe the hydro-ecological functioning of the Pantanal wetland and discuss the detrimental influences of the sort of use of natural resources and the associated anthropogenic impacts on the ecosystems services. The regional experience has wider significance for the management and conservation of tropical wetlands in other parts of the world, and particularly in the Paraguay-Parana River System as a whole, downriver from the Upper Paraguay River Basin. An integrated approach to land, water, and ecosystems at the river basin or catchment level is urgently needed to increase multiple benefits and to mitigate detrimental impacts among ecosystem services.
