Argentina Travel Guide

Argentina's natural wonders are one of its chief joys. Its remarkable diversity of habitats, ranging from subtropical jungles to subantarctic icesheets, is complemented by an unexpected juxtaposition of species: parrots foraging alongside glaciers, or shocking-pink flamingos surviving bitter sub-zero temperatures on the stark Andean Altiplano. However, despite the protection afforded by a relatively well-managed national park system and several highly committed environmental pressure groups, many of the country's ecosystems are under threat.

Argentina is one of the world's leading destinations for ornithologists, with over a thousand species of birds - ten percent of the world's total - having been recorded here. It also has several destinations where you can reliably spot mammals and other fauna, notably the Esteros de Iberá swampland in Corrientes and the Península Valdés coastal reserve in Chubut, although for the most part you'll require patience and luck to see the country's more exotic denizens. Though the divisions are too complicated to list fully, we've covered Argentina's most distinctive habitats, along with the species of flora and fauna typical to each.

The country's precious environmental heritage is under threat on numerous fronts, however. Illegal hunting is often hard to control but, as ever, by far and away the most pressing issue is habitat loss . The chaco is a good case in point. Whereas environments such as the wet chaco have long felt the strain of population and land clearance, pressures have increased at an alarming rate in the dry chaco. Previously, the lack of water in the Impenetrable was the flora and fauna's best asset. Nowadays, climate change has seen rainfall levels increase, and irrigation projects are fast opening up areas of the Impenetrable to settlement and agriculture, with a continued, desperately poorly controlled exploitation of mature woodland for timber or charcoal and land clearance ( desmonte ) for crops such as cotton. This comes on top of a century of ruthlessly exploitive forestry by companies such as the British owned El Forestal, which completely transformed the habitat of entire provinces - Santiago del Estero, for example, saw the export of an estimated 240 million railway sleepers of quebracho colorado in the space of seventy years. Forestry in other areas of the country - notably in Misiones and Tierra del Fuego - is also giving cause for alarm. Hydroelectric projects in the northeast of the country have destroyed valuable habitats along the Urugua'í and Paraná rivers, and overfishing has severely depleted stocks in the latter and in the ocean, where controls are notoriously lax.

Fortunately, though, the outlook isn't completely bleak. Environmental consciousness is slowly gaining ground (especially amongst the younger generation); the national parks system is expanding with the help of international loans; and committed national and local pressure groups such as the Fundación de Vida Silvestre and Asociación Ornitológica del Plata (both based in Buenos Aires), Proyecto Lemú (based in Epuyén), Finis Terrae (based in Ushuaia) and Proyecto Orca (based in Puerto Madryn) are ensuring that ecological issues do not get ignored