Private Nature Reserves
Today, conserving and protecting the country’s natural and cultural heritage is no longer exclusively the State
’s responsibility. It is a process in which the civil society together must participate, in its diverse expressions, in order to guarantee participation in sheltering the national resources.
Moises Bertoni Foundation collaborates with property owners who have interest in including part of their properties as private nature reserves recognized by the Paraguayan State, based on four objectives:
Principal Achievements of the Program
Operation Category
A Private Nature Reserve is a category of operation of protected wildlife areas that is established at the request and initiative of its proprietor, which solicits the Secretary of the Environment for recognition, thus passing the area on to become part of the National System of Protected Wildlife Areas (SINASIP).
Its objectives of creation are less strict, looking to combine nature conservation with promoting the use of resources under norms of environmental respect. The nature reserves aim to be nucleus in order to diffuse practices of sustainable use. Likewise, they provide environmental services to nearby communities as well as promote the restoration of degraded ecosystems.
The consolidation of a Private Nature Reserve has an established process, through which the conservation area is established. The Moises Bertoni Foundation summarizes synthetically those procedures in a table of sequential tasks, which go from the identification of the area until its legal recognition (see chart at Program of support to private conservation initiatives)
The possession of the property upon which the Private Nature Reserve is, does not look affected and continues being a private property, belonging to companies or individuals, in which the proprietor agrees on certain restrictions on use established in a Management Plan, valid for five years.
The zoning of private nature reserve will be determined in the Management Plan, taking into consideration the potentiality of each area, which will have permitted and restricted activities defined in accordance with each area’s management objective, as well as the activities to be developed while the Plan is in effect.
Through it takes years of work, the MBF has designed various management models according to the size of the property, the site’s ecological characteristics, and activities, both under development and expected, in order to optimize the role that these conservation areas fulfill at a national level in the protection of the country’s natural resources.
Private nature reserves serve many functions, among which we can mention with more detail:
ALegal and incentive aspects for the proprietors
The legal framework for the implementation of Private Nature Reserves is given by Law 352/94; establishing in Title II, Chapter V:
Article 26.- The declaration of a Protected Wildlife Area under private control will be made under Decree of the Executive Power or Law, requiring basis in a technical justification that contains the general diagnostic of the particular characteristics of biological, physical, and cultural resources existent in the area and of its importance for current and future conservation of ecosystems, ecological processes, and natural resources.
Article 27.- The declaration of a Protected Wildlife Area under private control must be registered in the General Management of the Public Registry Office, so that the restrictions of use and control are publicly known.
Article 28.- The revocation of the declaration of a Protected Wildlife Area under private control will be carried out by means of Decree or Law and it may be done as of the fifth year subsequent to the declaratory Decree or Law.
The procedures by which a Protected Wildlife Area under private control is declared or revoked will be regulated by the Application Authority.
Article 29.- The boundaries of a declared Protected Wildlife
Area under private control must be determined with the greatest possible accuracy in the declaratory Decree or Law of the area. The responsible for its administration must delineate the area in the land under supervision of the Application Authority. The production of the respective Plan of Handling will be arranged, in which the guidelines and politics for the administration of the area are established, as well as guidance for the assignment of permitted uses and activities.
Article 30.- The foreseen benefits will not be considered in the Laws for Protected Areas before the promulgation of legal norms that declare them as such as of their inscription in the respective Registry.
The promotion that the mentioned Law establishes for Private Nature Reserves is established in Title III, Chapter IV.
Article 56.- Reserve Areas declared to date and Protected Wildlife Areas under private control, declared according to what is stipulated in Art. 26 will be exempt from property payment and from all substitutive or additional taxes that are created upon the rural property. Furthermore, they will be inexpropiable during the course of the declaration’s validity.
