On the banks of La Azotea stream, officials from the National and Provincial Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development inaugurated this Monday the Network of Conservation Lighthouses in the Pre Delta National Park, located south of the city of Diamante, Entre Ríos, to prevent and control forest fires.
During the presentation held this afternoon on a stage surrounded by willows, the Deputy Minister of the Environment, Sergio Federoviskypointed out that “from August until now, the logic of a fire management plan was recovered, which involves actions and tools for all the stages of a fire”.
In this sense, he remarked that in order to have a public fire management policy, “you had to have resources that had been taken away from you.” Federovisky emphasized that “they are not just towers with cameras, it is a prevention system that in a few minutes detects with georeferencing where the fire starts. This allows us to know who is the dream of the field and for what purpose the fire started.”
Thus, he mentioned that “early detection is that, to be able to arrive earlier because in this area of the country there are no lightning that generate fires, there is a personal benefit, an angurria of the territory that is why we defend the common good.”
The Paraná River Delta Conservation Lighthouse Network programcreated in 2020 through Resolution 432, is a comprehensive response to the environmental problem of the Delta, which consists of establishing nodes of a network of protected areas in different parts of the region to strengthen the institutional and operational presence in the territory, and deploy a early fire detection plan.
Thus, the authorities present it as a management model for the prevention of environmental risksthe conservation of biodiversity and the regional productive transition towards environmental, economic and social sustainability.
Present at the event that took place next to the Dra. Ana Inés Malvárez visitor center, where the Argentine flag flew, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change of the province of Santa Fe, Erika Gonnet, recognized that “for us it is great news to talk about this technology that we can see and touch for fire prevention“.
Meanwhile, he reinforced that the lighthouse “is the commitment of many people,” and in the case of Santa Fe it was “very important because many Santa Fe residents did not know of the existence of a National Park.”
For its part, Gustavo Eduardo Bordet, governor of the province of Entre Rios, pointed out that “we work hard and steadily in this network of lighthouses to quickly reach the fires that year after year ravage the Delta islands.” At the closing of the act, he mentioned that he wants to determine who intentionally starts the fires to generate punitive actions. “This is the way to have quick solutions that preserve our ecosystem for future generations,” he concluded about the prevention plan.
Thus, in this first stage of the project, the nodes in the Santa Fe town of Puerto Gaboto, located in the Santa Fe Islands National Park; another in the Sun Island Nature Reservel, in Villa Constitución, Province of Santa Fe; the Charigüe Island Municipal Reserve, located in front of the city of Rosario; fourth node is in the vicinity of the Pre-Delta National Park in Entre Rios; and the fifth was installed in the Swamp Deer National Parkin the coastal zone of the Province of Buenos Aires, at the height of Campana.
In a second stage, it is expected to replicate the experience of the Paraná Delta in the center of the country with three towers in San Luis and five in Córdoba; while in Patagonia, four towers are planned to be installed in Neuquén, two in Río Negro and three in Chubut.
This inauguration is part of the proposal to reactivate the Comprehensive Strategic Plan for Conservation and Sustainable Use in the Paraná Delta (PIECAS), an interjurisdictional agreement between the provinces of Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, and the national State. As a closing of the act carried out in this National Park whose emblem is the large kingfisher, the officials received seedlings of native vegetation as a gift.
