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
Pampas grasslands and the espinal
The vast alluvial plain centred on Buenos Aires Province, and radiating out into eastern Córdoba, southern Santa Fé and the northeast of La Pampa Province, was originally pampas grassland, essentially treeless and famous for its clumps of brush-tailed ...
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Mesopotamian grassland
Found across much of Corrientes and Entre Ríos provinces, and extending into southernmost Misiones, are the humid Mesopotamian grasslands . Here you will find yatay palm savannah and some of Argentina's most important ...
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Subtropical Paraná forests
Subtropical Paraná forest ( Selva Paranaense ) is Argentina's most biologically diverse ecosystem, a dense mass of vegetation that conforms with most people's idea of a jungle. The most frequently visited area of Paraná forest is the...
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The wet chaco
Found in the eastern third of Chaco and Formosa provinces and the northeast of Santa Fé is what is described as wet chaco habitat. It consists of small remnant patches of gallery forest (not unlike the Paraná forest), growing by rivers and...
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The dry chaco
The dry chaco refers to the parched plain of unruly thorn-scrub that covers most of central and western Chaco and Formosa provinces, northeastern Salta, and much of Santiago del Estero - where you'll find the best-preserved example of this...
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The yungas
The yungas is the term applied to the humid, subtropical band of the Argentinian northwest that's squeezed between the flat chaco to the east and the Andean pre-cordillera to the west, dropping south from the Bolivian border through Jujuy and...
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The puna
The prepuna and higher puna of the Andean northwest encompass a range of extremely harsh, arid habitats that range from the cardón cactus valleys from Jujuy to La Rioja, to the highest bleak Altiplano vegetation below...
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The Patagonian steppe
Typified by its brush scrub and wiry grassland, the Patagonian steppe ( estepa ) covers the greatest extent of any Argentine ecosystem. This vast, grey-brown expanse of semi-desert lies to the south of the pampas grasslands, to the...
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The Patagonian cordillera forests
The eastern slopes of the Patagonian cordillera are cloaked, for most of their length, in forests dominated by the various species of Nothofagus southern beech . Two species run the length of the forests, from the northernmost forests of...
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The Atlantic seaboard
Argentina has 4725km of Atlantic coastline, which comprises three main types of habitat. From the mouth of the estuary of the Río de la Plata to just beyond the southern limit of Buenos Aires Province, the shoreline is mainly flat, fringed by dunes, sandy...
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