Esteros del Iberá

The Iberá wetlands in Corrientes Province cover 13,000 square kilometres of floating islands, black-water lagoons, and gallery forest — the second-largest wetland system in South America after the Pantanal — and the marsh deer here step through water plants the colour of jade with a deliberateness that suggests they know the light is good. Caimans lie on the banks in the morning sun without moving until a bird lands close enough to make movement worthwhile. The capybara, the world's largest rodent, moves in groups of thirty through the reed edges at dusk.

The Iberá wetlands are the result of a shallow depression in the Corrientes Province plateau that captures seasonal rainfall without drainage to the sea, creating a permanent freshwater system of extraordinary biological productivity. The Iberá Provincial Reserve, combined with the expanding Gran Iberá Park project managed by Tompkins Conservation, covers over 700,000 hectares and has reintroduced giant anteaters, pampas deer, tapirs, collared peccaries, and — most significantly — jaguars, absent from the Argentine Mesopotamia for over seventy years. The jaguar reintroduction programme, begun in 2021 with animals from Brazil and Belize, is the most ambitious large-carnivore reintroduction project in the Americas, with twelve individuals confirmed breeding in the wild as of 2024. The wetlands also host the world's most accessible giant river otter population outside the Amazon basin.