Pantanal waterway project would destroy a ‘paradise on Earth’, scientists warn

The South American wetland, which falls within Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, would be vulnerable to biome loss and increased wildfires

• Losing Noah's Ark': Brazil's plan to turn the Pantanal into waterway threatens world's biggest wetland

Dozens of scientists are sounding the alarm that carving a commercial waterway through the world's largest wetlands could spell the end of an entire biome", and leave hundreds of thousands of hectares of land to be devastated by wildfires.

The Pantanal wetland - which falls within Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, covering an area almost half the size of Germany - is facing the proposed construction of a commercial waterway, as well as the expansion of industrial farming and spread of intense wildfires. A cohort of 40 scientists say the waterway development represents an existential threat to the ecosystem: reducing the floodplain, increasing the risk of fires and transforming the area into a landscape that could more easily be farmed.