The 20-year-old who gave up life in the city to live in the Pantanal and leads an animal rescue group

“I was a 100% urban girl. I left family and friends to move. I left everything that a young man would not abandon,” she tells BBC News Brazil.

In the Pantanal, Eduarda works in an area that has grown more and more in recent years in the biome: tourism. But for a month, the only activity of the young woman has been rescuing the animals, along with four other volunteers.

The group was one of the first to help animals in the Pantanal. Today, hundreds of people are bringing aid to the animals of the region, before the intense spread of the fire.

From January to the first half of September this year, the Pantanal had more than 2.9 million hectares affected by the fire, according to the National Center for Prevention and Fighting of Forest Fires (Prevfogo). The burned area corresponds, for example, to just over 19 times the capital of São Paulo.

Since the beginning of 2020, according to the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), 15,400 hot spots (which usually represent fires) have been registered in the Pantanal. It is the highest figure in the period since 1999, the first year analyzed by monitoring that became a reference for monitoring fires in the country.

Since she was little Eduarda has cultivated the love for animals.

“I always had contact with animals and the bush in other regions, through my family. However, I lived in the city and considered myself totally urban,” he says.

She started visiting the Pantanal about five years ago, after meeting her boyfriend, João Paulo Macedo Falcão, now 22 years old.

“I loved the biodiversity. There are many animals around here, and I loved that,” says the young woman.

When he finished high school two years ago, he decided to move to the Pantanal region.

The young woman started living with her now engaged boyfriend, who owns an inn on the Transpantaneira highway, which connects the city of Poconé (MT) with the Porto Jofre region, on the border with Mato Grosso do Sul.

“Since 2018 I live and work in the Pantanal. My life revolves around here,” says Eduarda. Its main activity is to accompany tourists in the observation of animals.

Tourism is considered a fundamental activity for the biome. Studies by the organization Panthera, dedicated to the conservation of jaguars, indicate that the observation of jaguars in the Brazilian Pantanal represents gross annual income of approximately US $ 6.8 million for the communities of the region.

Work, Eduarda says, is also a way of being close to animals.

“In the future, I think about studying biology or veterinary medicine, for the animals,” he says.

The young woman relates that she never imagined that she could see fires like those that have been advancing through the biome.

“This story that the Pantanal burns every year is an attempt to reduce what is happening here. There may have been fires before, but nothing in this proportion. What is happening here cannot be considered normal,” he says.

As soon as he realized that the tragedy in the biome was taking unexpected turns, he decided to take action to help the animals. “We contacted agencies in Mato Grosso, but got no response. There was nothing to help affected animals in the region. So I decided to look for volunteers who could help, ”he reports.

In the middle of last month, Eduarda started helping the animals, together with the groom. As the days passed, two veterinarians and a biologist from other Brazilian states arrived to assist them.

The five volunteers started a task force to successfully rescue the animals. The group set up a base to help the animals at Eduarda’s fiancé’s family inn, the Jaguar Ecological Reserve.

“The first step was to create a project to distribute 140-liter troughs of water and fruit for the animals. As many are in the areas affected by the fire, it is important to provide this support ”, says the young woman.

He says that later, diverse groups of volunteers also began to bring food and water to the Pantanal animals.

In the Transpantaneira region, the group led by Eduarda rescued several animals in serious condition.

“We found tapirs, coatis, birds and bales.”

Not all the animals survived. “Some did not resist, because it is a very difficult situation. Others have undergone treatment and have the possibility of recovering ”, explains the young woman.

The animals rescued alive are sent to the inn, where they receive the first assistance from the veterinarians. “This emergency aid they receive at the inn is very important, because most of the people rescued are at risk of dying,” says the young woman.

Later, the animals are sent to veterinary hospitals in the region.

The reserve, which is considered to have the highest concentration of jaguars in the world, is almost completely engulfed in fires.

Until this Friday (18), according to the Mato Grosso Fire Department, some 92 thousand hectares of the place, of the 108 thousand, had already been destroyed by fire.

“The rescue of the jaguar was complex, but I’m not saying it was the most difficult. All rescue is complicated. You have to observe well beforehand, to understand the animal. It is not an easy task, ”says Eduarda.

At the end of August, the Secretary of State for the Environment (Sema) of Mato Grosso began the activities of the Pantanal Wild Animal Service Station (PAEAS), to help the animals that are victims of the fire. The team, led by a veterinarian, is supported by state agencies and volunteers.

State support was slow to arrive, he evaluates. Today, there are volunteer groups from all over the country throughout the biome. They are divided into different areas to help the animals affected by the fire.

Eduarda confesses that, at first, she was afraid of not being able to lead her group. However, she believes she has been a good leader.

“As I am the youngest, I thought I could not lead, but they are very close people and we have been able to do a good job,” he says. According to her, the knowledge she has acquired about the biome in recent years has been essential.

For Eduarda, the scenes witnessed in the Pantanal in recent weeks are bleak. “It was all a shock,” he says.

She plans to end the volunteer work only when the biome situation eases. “I don’t want to leave the animals without support,” he reflects. The young woman estimates that she has rescued about 15 animals in recent weeks.

“What moved me, for sure, was seeing the animals suffer so much. They are innocent and have no idea what is happening. They cannot suffer like this, without any help,” he says.

Its main objective, in the coming months, is for the Pantanal to recover from the tragedy it currently faces. “We will continue fighting so that everything is better.”

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