Senior Associate, Conserving Pantanal and Gran Chaco Wildlands

Senior Associate, Conserving the Pantanal and Gran Chaco Wildlands

The Environment Portfolio at The Pew Charitable Trusts

For more than 30 years, Pew has been a major force in engaging the public and policy makers about the causes, consequences, and solutions to some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. Our environment work spans all seven continents with more than 250 professionals working at the local, national, and international levels to reduce the scope and severity of global environmental problems, such as the erosion of large natural ecosystems that contain a great part of the world’s remaining biodiversity, and the destruction of the marine environment.

Pew’s global environmental program focuses on science-based, nonpartisan, and sustainable solutions to help protect the planet and people. We work in partnership with governments, Indigenous rights holders, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, local stakeholders, scientists, and other researchers to advance public policy so that nature and communities can thrive.

Since 1990, Pew has worked in North America, South America and Australia to protect large and critically important terrestrial ecosystems, including rivers and other freshwater resources, coastal temperate rainforests, interior mountain ranges, the northern boreal forests, Australia’s Outback, and Chilean Patagonia. We work to ensure these natural systems remain bountiful, functioning, and resilient, providing essential ecological services such as clean air and clean water, sustenance and food security for local communities and more broadly for the welfare of current and future generations.

Our work relies on the sciences of conservation, sociology, biology, and economics to advocate for practical and durable solutions to the loss of biodiversity.

In the sea, reforms to how our oceans are managed are essential to address overfishing, pollution, and loss of habitat. Pew began its oceans program in the United States, focusing on ending overfishing and protecting fragile marine habitat. Starting in 2005, Pew’s ocean conservation program expanded around the world and played a significant role in reforming marine fisheries management in the European Union and on the high seas and creating large scale marine reserves around the world.

Our work is grounded in the best available science and pursues domestic and international conservation measures that are long-term and provide permanent, durable protections for marine ecosystems. We also work to address systemic threats to the ocean, including from plastics, over-and-illegal fishing, seabed mining, and climate change.

Conserving the Pantanal and Gran Chaco Wildlands

South America’s Pantanal and Gran Chaco regions are among the most ecologically significant tropical wetlands and dry forests on Earth. This area spans parts of Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina and contains thousands of plant and animal species and provides vital aquatic habitat, nutrient renewal, migration routes, and flood control for millions of animals and people living downstream. The region’s extensive ecosystems are currently threatened by deforestation, drought and intensification of wildfires related to climate change, and thus urgently need conservation action.

The project works with the policy framework in each country to solidify and expand protection of the extraordinary biodiversity of the Pantanal-Gran Chaco region. Pew partners with local and international conservation organizations, government agencies, and Indigenous governments and organizations to improve management of and expand protected areas, support Indigenous organizations and communities in the management of their territories, promote…