By Juanita Thigpen
Despite appearances, we are not cruising through Bavaria on the autobahn. We are on the Ruta Trans Chaco, a road through some of South America's roughest landscape into the remote Chaco region of western Paraguay. Ratzlaff, a humble Mennonite church leader and psychologist, grew up in this isolated area and now represents it in the Paraguayan congress.
Several cows block the highway a few hundred feet down the road, but Ratzlaff does not seem concerned. Just as we get close enough to admire the brands on the cows' rumps, the animals grudgingly move out of the way.
"I once took a Canadian colleague down this road and he almost died of a heart attack," he says in a German-Paraguayan accent as thick as the stewy yerba mate tea he's sipping. "He said,'How do you know those cows aren't going to move out of the way?' I said, 'Because I'm a psychologist and I can identify the crazy ones from kilometers away.'"
Suddenly, a large object smashes into the windshield. "Que lastima! (What a shame!)," he says, stopping abruptly. He eases his trim, six-foot-five frame out of the car to inspect an unfortunate parakeet--the third his car has collided with this day. "You just can't help it...there are so many birds. If I get home without killing one animal I consider that to be a good day." Each year, says Ratzlaff, an average of 30,000 animals are lost to automobiles on this 440-mile-long highway.
The road kill statistics were much higher 23 years ago, when the two-lane highway was first built through this huge, isolated region, and nature spilled out onto the highway like blood gushing out of a fresh incision. But the decrease in road kills is an ironically disturbing sign that this last great South American wilderness may be in trouble.
Native peoples called this region "chacu," which means "great hunting ground." It is packed with game--more mammal species per square mile than the nearby Amazon basin, according to some zoologist's estimates. The Chaco is also a mecca for birds, boasting more than 400 avian species. Until recently, this wildlife haven had largely escaped the fate of neighboring natural areas because of hostile weather conditions, equally hostile flora and fauna and a lack of fresh water. But as population pressures increase on Paraguay's eastern side, and as the country's economy languishes, plans are afoot to dam, pave, dredge and plow parts of the Chaco--developments that would forever alter this ecologically delicate region. Ratzlaff has made it his mission in life to save the Chaco before it's too late.
"God says we should take care of his creation -- not destroy it but to keep it so that we can pass it on to our children," he says.