Pantanal Conservation Area

In the far south-west of Mato Grosso, four linked reserves covering 187,818 hectares guard a slice of the Pantanal, among the largest freshwater wetlands on Earth. The Cuiabá and Paraguay rivers both rise within this landscape of seasonal floods, which feeds a wetland teeming with plant and animal life on a scale few places can match. UNESCO listed the conservation area as natural World Heritage in 2000.