Argentina adds Villavicencio Natural Reserve to the Ramsar List

Argentina has declared Villavicencio Natural Reserve as its 23rd Wetland of International Importance. The Site (Ramsar Site no. 2330) is located in the Province of Mendoza. The Reserve has been designated as a Natural Voluntary Reserve of Multiple Use by the Ministry of Environment and Public Works of Mendoza Province; it belongs to Danone and provides the resources for its mineral water brand. Several thermal springs emerge from its hillsides and from the banks of its streams, and both the mineral components and the temperature of the water have therapeutic effects.

The Reserve provides important ecosystem services, for example providing water, food, and recreational and aesthetic resources, regulating floods and erosion, and recharging the underlying aquifer. It also supports numerous ecological communities such as vegas (alluvial plains), the most characteristic wetlands of the Site. The Reserve covers a wide altitude range, from 700 to 3,300 metres above sea level, and so it harbours numerous notable species such as the endangered Andean cat Leopardus jacobita and the endemic Burmeister's anole Pristidactylus scapulatus.

The Site also has an important paleontological and historical heritage; however it faces threats such as the impacts of mining, invasive species, forest fires, hunting of large vertebrates and illegal capture of wild birds.

On 20 March 2018, during the 8th World Water Forum in Brasilia, the Ramsar Secretariat presented the certificate of designation of the Villavicencio Natural Reserve as a Wetland of International Importance to Danone.