Welcome to the EPI website!

Welcome to the EPI website, the virtual meeting place for the Pantanal Matogrossense (Brazil-Bolivia-Paraguay) and the Florida Everglades (USA). The Florida Center for Environmental Studies (CES) is honored to host this site, as an incentive to the enhancement of a potentially rich Inter-American dialogue on wetlands. Find here your partners and work out with them project opportunities that will lead to integrated water and land sustainable development.

The Florida Everglades and the Pantanal Matogrossense are wetlands of international relevance, and they are part of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. They are subject of various levels of environmental impacts caused by population growth pressure and a myriad of environmental management practices. Although both present different characteristics, both of them are in the same hierarchic level as ecosystems. Being so, an ecosystem management approach directed to a comparative analysis will benefit the managers of theses biomes in their tasks to promote sustainable activities.

The fundamental knowledge of how the Everglades and the Pantanal work and their tolerance to anthropogenic impacts must be very well understood while environmental management decisions are taken. Only then, the necessary negotiations on water and land use will find a balance in an adequate perspective. Social sustainability and economic feasibility will then join to complete the planning process. Thus, we hope to gather various sites and documents concerning these two magnificent ecosystems and facilitate your research in support of these tenets.

So, join us in a journey to restore the Everglades and to preserve the Pantanal. We are looking forward to your participation! 

Updated: September 22, 2003

Upcoming Event: 
Pantanal Wetland: Interlinkages Approach for Wetland Management:
Best practices, awareness raising and capacity building.  On October 26-30, 2003, the Center for Pantanal Research, the main Brazilian node of the Everglades Pantanal Initiative, is coordinating an international workshop on interlinkages in partnership with University of the United Nations, through the Pantanal Regional Environmental Program (UNU/PREP). [more]

Ramsar and EPI: 
Promoting Financing for Conservation

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and EPI held a round of meetings in Brazil to promote the creation of a PANTANAL FUND, to assist in the financing of sustainable activities and research in the region
 [more]

Alain Lambert (Ramsar), Alberto Palombo (EPI), and Eliane Fachim (FEMA-MT) in the Cuiabá Workshop for Conservation Units.

Technical Visit to U.S. Wetlands
The U.S. Department of State, in collaboration with EPI stakeholders,organized a technical visit to the Everglades and Chesapeake Bay on Aug 25-Sep 6, 2002.  The group was comprised of 12 participants from the Alto Paraguay Basin (Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay)   [more]