The Iberá Wetlands (, from
Guaraní ''ý berá'': "bright water") are a mix of
swamp
A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...
s,
bog
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and musk ...
s, stagnant
lake
A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...
s,
lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...
s, natural slough, and courses of water in the center and center-north of the .
Iberá is one of the most important freshwater reservoirs in
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
and the second-largest
wetland
A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...
in the world after
Pantanal
The Pantanal () is a natural region encompassing the world's largest tropical wetland area, and the world's largest Flooded grasslands and savannas, flooded grasslands. It is located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, but i ...
in
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
. It is of
pluvial
In geology and climatology, a pluvial is either a modern climate characterized by relatively high precipitation or an interval of time of variable length, decades to thousands of years, during which a climate is characterized by relatively high ...
origin, with a total area of .
Since 1982, part of the wetland is included within a provincial protected area, the
Iberá Provincial Reserve, which comprises about , the largest of such areas in Argentina. There are ongoing plans to further up its protection status to
national park
A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...
.
It is home to a wide variety of fauna, including capybara, 60 species of reptiles including caimans and snakes, frogs, anteaters, otters, several species of deer, and over 350 species of birds. The region was once threatened by poaching, cattle ranching, and foresting which threatened several of these species, but thanks to a rewilding initiative, several species have been re-introduced, including the jaguar. This initiative also sought to reorient the economy of the area to be more focused on tourism, in order to keep the newly reintroduced species populations safe.
Capybara
The capybara or greater capybara (''Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris'') is the largest living rodent, native to South America. It is a member of the genus '' Hydrochoerus''. The only other extant member is the lesser capybara (''Hydrochoerus isthmi ...
'' at Iberá
File:Esteros del Ibera Laguna.JPG, Esteros del Iberá Lagoon
File:Esteros del Iberá.jpg, Some lakes in the Iberá Wetlands, reflecting sunlight
See also
*
Iberá Provincial Reserve
*
Wetland
A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...
References
External links
''Rewilding Ibera: Efforts made to save Argentina's wetlands'' Al Jazeera Englisch, January 2021 (video, 4:25 mins)
Wetlands of Argentina
Ramsar sites in Argentina
Geography of Corrientes Province
Guaraní words and phrases
La Plata basin
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