Saving the Last Big Slice of Paraguay's Atlantic Forest

Guyra Paraguay is a Paraguayan conservation NGO founded in 1997 that began by monitoring the country's birds as indicators of habitat loss and has since become one of its largest private land conservationists. Its San Rafael Reserve protects the largest remaining block of Atlantic Forest in southern Paraguay, home to 440 recorded bird species, including 57 found nowhere else in the region. Guyra Paraguay directly owns and manages the 7,000-hectare Guyra Reta Reserve within this landscape, working with World Land Trust since 2005 to buy and protect threatened Chaco, Pantanal, and Atlantic Forest habitat. The reserve faces relentless pressure -- 20,000 hectares have burned in recent wildfires and roughly 800 hectares a year are cleared for marijuana cultivation -- so Guyra Paraguay also promotes shade-grown yerba mate agroforestry as an income alternative that keeps forest cover intact for local farmers.