El Pantano: Where the Impossible Future Becomes Real

El Pantano means wetland. We chose to build our home, our school, and our regenerative-design lab inside one of South America’s most vital and threatened ecosystems.

The Paraná Delta is a living system that regulates water, shelters biodiversity, sustains local livelihoods, and connects millions of people with the rhythms of the river.

Even though part of the area has been declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the Delta is under growing pressure. Fires, pollution, habitat degradation, unsustainable development, invasive species, and large-scale infrastructure decisions are altering the ecological balance of the river.

We are not waiting for someone else to protect it. We are doing the work ourselves — and helping our community do the same.

Our project is set on a 23-hectare island, 45 minutes by boat from the north of Buenos Aires, with the intention to protect and regenerate more land over time.

We have co-produced El Futuro Imposible, an animated documentary and educational program that portrays South American regenerative solutions to some of humanity’s most urgent problems. Now we are putting our lab and school to work in order to bring these ideas to life in a real territory, with our own community.

We are currently restoring native wetland habitat. As we learn to live in a regenerative way, we host workshops, educational retreats, artists, designers, scientists, teachers, students, families, and visitors. We create practical experiences where people can learn directly from the territory.

Now we are launching El Pantano Wetland School, a community-based education and stewardship program rooted at El Pantano. The project connects local schools, Delta residents, educators, researchers, artists, environmental organizations, and visitors through field-based learning, wetland literacy, citizen observation, ecological storytelling, and regenerative practices.

Visitors help us sustain the local economy and create local jobs, but they also help us have an impact that goes beyond the limits of our island. What we need now is the capacity to reach more people, subsidize access for those who cannot pay, communicate the value of the wetland, and build stronger connections with schools, local communities, and institutions.

Our goal is simple: to help people experience themselves as part of the living ecosystems that sustain life, and to transmit the enthusiasm of working collaboratively to design with nature, not against it.

Background & Problem Statement

The Paraná Delta is one of Argentina’s most important wetland systems, and it is extremely threatened.

Debates about the future of the Paraná-Paraguay waterway are intensifying. We are especially concerned about proposals for massive deepening, dredging, and expansion of the commercial waterway without adequate environmental assessment. Such interventions could permanently alter the depth, flow, sediment dynamics, and ecological balance of the Paraná de las Palmas River, with serious consequences for wetland habitats, local communities, and the wider Delta ecosystem.

This is not only an environmental issue. It is an educational, cultural, economic, and civic challenge.

We know that if we want to protect the wetland, we must also create quality jobs, empower local economies, and make ecological education accessible to people who cannot usually pay for these experiences.

If people do not understand the wetland, they cannot defend it. If communities are not connected, they cannot coordinate. If knowledge remains trapped in technical reports, it does not become shared responsibility.

At the same time, our own challenge is not a lack of interest. People who visit El Pantano often tell us that the project is much deeper than what our public materials show. Our challenge is the lack of communication, outreach, and coordination capacity needed to bring this work to the people and institutions who could benefit from it most.

Our Solution

El Pantano Wetland School is already transforming our project into a living classroom for the Paraná Delta.

We create educational experiences, workshops, school visits, guided wetland walks, community gatherings, documentation tools, and shareable learning materials. Participants learn by walking the land, observing water levels, identifying native plants, listening to local knowledge, mapping ecological relationships, discussing threats to the Delta, and imagining practical forms of regeneration.

The program will also adapt the educational framework of El Futuro Imposible into accessible resources for wetland literacy, climate education, regenerative design, and community action.

El Futuro Imposible is an animated documentary and educational project that makes ideas such as ecological interdependence, regenerative design, climate solutions, and community resilience accessible to young people. El Pantano Wetland School brings those ideas into direct contact with a real territory.

Instead of learning about regeneration only through screens or classrooms, students and visitors will experience it in the wetland itself.

This project responds to urgent pressures on the Paraná Delta, including habitat degradation, fires, pollution, unsustainable development, and the potential impacts of deepening or expanding the Paraná-Paraguay waterway without adequate environmental assessment.

Funds will help us activate El Pantano Wetland School as a public-facing program by supporting scholarships, school activities, community outreach, communication, field materials, documentation, and shareable resources based on the EFI educational framework.

How We Regenerate

We regenerate by connecting ecological restoration, education, culture, community, and local livelihoods.

At El Pantano, regeneration is not an abstract idea. It means restoring native vegetation, learning how to live with water, designing with the rhythms of the wetland, reducing extractive relationships with nature, and creating spaces where people can feel part of the living systems that sustain them.

Visitors help us sustain the local economy and create local jobs, but they also help us have an impact that goes beyond the limits of our island. Regenerative tourism is not the final goal. It is one way to support education, restoration, community participation, and long-term stewardship of the Delta.

Our work includes:

native wetland restoration;
experiential education in nature;
regenerative design and permaculture;
citizen observation and ecological documentation;
art, storytelling, and cultural programming;
school and community visits;
scholarships and subsidized access for students and local communities;
regenerative tourism as a source of education and financial resilience;
connection with other Delta communities and environmental actors;
communication and public awareness about the value and vulnerability of the wetland.

We believe the Paraná Delta is not only an ecosystem to protect, but a teacher. Through El Pantano, we create opportunities for people to learn from the wetland, care for it, and carry its lessons into their communities.

Use of Funds

Funds raised through Ma Earth will support the public activation of El Pantano Wetland School.

El Pantano already exists as a regenerative place, educational experience, and community space. What we need now is the outreach, communication, coordination, and access funding required to bring this work to the people and institutions who can benefit from it most.

The funds will be used for:

Access and scholarships
Subsidized participation for students, public schools, teachers, and low-income Delta communities who could not otherwise access educational experiences at El Pantano.

School and institutional outreach
A dedicated coordination role to connect with educators, school directors, universities, environmental organizations, cultural institutions, and community leaders across the Paraná Delta region.

Community communication and public awareness
Communication, PR, storytelling, and community management to make the ecological and cultural value of the Delta visible, share what is being learned, and reach broader audiences.

EFI educational adaptation
Adaptation of the El Futuro Imposible pedagogical guide into wetland-focused activities, classroom resources, field exercises, community screenings, and accessible learning tools.

Community programming
Workshops, EFI screenings, wetland dialogues, school visits, community learning days, and learning exchanges with local residents, students, teachers, artists, researchers, and environmental actors.

Documentation and impact tracking
Photo, video, interviews, field notes, participant reflections, and basic reporting to document the process and share lessons with other communities.

Field materials and basic equipment
Support for signage, observation tools, workshop materials, printed guides, safety materials, and basic infrastructure for receiving groups.

Coordination and facilitation
The human work required to organize visits, host groups, document impact, build partnerships, communicate clearly, and maintain continuity.

Tracking Impact

We will track both quantitative and qualitative impact.

Quantitative indicators will include:

number of workshops held;
number of school visits;
number of students and teachers reached;
number of subsidized participants;
number of local residents and Delta actors involved;
number of community gatherings;
number of EFI screenings or educational activations;
number of educational materials created;
number of documentation pieces produced;
number of participating organizations or schools;
number of regenerative tourism experiences connected to education.

Qualitative indicators will include:

participant reflections;
teacher feedback;
student learning outcomes;
stories from residents and visitors;
new collaborations generated;
changes in ecological awareness;
evidence of stronger community connection to the wetland;
new institutional relationships created.

We will document the process through written reports, photographs, video, interviews, field notes, and public educational materials. Our goal is not only to measure activities, but to understand how people’s relationship with the Delta changes through direct experience.

Our Experience

El Pantano already exists as a physical place of learning, experimentation, culture, and community in the Paraná Delta. We have hosted workshops, retreats, cultural gatherings, immersive experiences, educational conversations, school-related activities, and regenerative tourism experiences.

Our team brings together experience in education, ecological thinking, design, community building, audiovisual storytelling, hospitality, cultural production, and regenerative project development.

We are also connected to El Futuro Imposible, an educational and audiovisual initiative that has developed a pedagogical guide for secondary school teachers and introduces young people to climate solutions, regenerative design, and community resilience.

El Pantano Wetland School is the next step: bringing that educational vision into a living territory where students, residents, visitors, and communities can learn by participating directly in the life of the wetland.

Why Now

The Paraná Delta is at a critical moment.

Ecological degradation is accelerating. Fires, development pressure, pollution, and infrastructure decisions are reshaping the future of the wetland. At the same time, many people are searching for new ways to reconnect with nature, build community resilience, and respond meaningfully to climate and ecological crisis.

El Pantano is ready to become a node for this work.

We already have the land, the experience, the educational vision, and the community interest. What we lack is the activation layer: access funding, outreach, communication, coordination, and institutional connection.

With support from Ma Earth, we can turn an existing regenerative settlement into a public-facing wetland school: a place where people learn in nature, document what is happening, connect across communities, and build practical forms of stewardship for the Paraná Delta.

The impossible becomes real when people gather around a living place and begin to care for it together.