PANTANAL

floodplain in southwestern Brazil that extends into northeast Paraguay and southeast Brazil and is the world's largest wetland. Most of the Pantanal's 39,000-square-mile (101,00-square kilometre) area lies within northwestern Mato Grosso do Sul and southern Mato Grosso states in Brazil. The wetlands extend for about 375 miles (600 km) north-to-south along the banks of the upper Paraguay River and several of its tributaries, including the So Loureno and the Taquari rivers. The Pantanal is a gigantic seasonal floodplain. During the summer rainy season (NovemberMarch), the rivers overflow their banks and flood the adjacent lowlands, forming shallow lakes and innumerable swamps and marshes and leaving islandlike areas of higher ground. During the drier winter season (AprilSeptember), the rivers withdraw into their banks, but the lowlands are only partially drained. The sediments carried by the floods confer great fertility on the Pantanal's soils, which support trees, rushes, and grasses and a rich assortment of wildlife consisting of more than 600 species of birds, 200 species of fishes, and many mammals and reptiles. The Pantanal's grazing lands have supported cattle raising, but by the late 20th century the activities of gold miners and farmers in surrounding areas, and the effects of poachers and tourists in the Pantanal itself, threatened to upset the wetlands' delicate ecology.