Successful Clean-up Efforts Improve Paraguay’s Bahía de Asunción WHSRN Site

Each month, volunteers, friends, and staff of the conservation association Guyra Paraguay and of the Municipality of Asunción have carried out “clean-up days” at the Bahía de Asunción WHSRN Site, involving many other partners in the initiative. These efforts are part of a larger campaign to improve the Bay to benefit the people of the capital city of Asunción and its visitors as well as its shorebirds. Each clean-up day, an average of approximately 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of trash is collected. The volunteers return to find all types of trash, but plastic bags are the most prevalent and constitute a serious threat to birds. According to Guyra Paraguay, there are at least 25 species of shorebirds in the Bay. More than 1% of the world’s Buff-breasted Sandpipers (Tryngites subruficollis) use the Bay as a critical stopover during its long migration from Canada to Patagonia.

The 522-hectare (1,290-acre) Bahía de Asunción is a WHSRN Site, an Important Bird Area, and an Ecological Reserve within Paraguay’s National System of Protected Natural Areas. This site is Paraguay’s first case of “co-management” between the national (Secretariat of the Environment) and local (Municipality) governments.

Congratulations and many thanks to our partners and all the volunteers from various organizations involved for their dedication and hard work!

For more information, please contact Elizabeth Cabrera (ecabrera@guyra.org.py) or visit Guyra Paraguay on the Web.