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Parque Nacional Chiribiquete, Villavicencio, Colombia

The Serranía de Chiribiquete National Natural Park is located in the jurisdiction of the municipalities of Calamar (Department of Guaviare) and Solano.

Cartagena del Chairá and San Vicente del Caguán (Department of Caquetá), consists of lush forests and is surrounded by several rivers:

Parque Nacional Chiribiquete
Parque Nacional Chiribiquete

Apaporis and Macayá, Ajajú and Yarí, in the heart of the Amazon jungle.

In 1989 it was declared a National Park through Agreement No. 0045 of September 21, 1989

Of the National Institute of Renewable Natural Resources and the Environment -Inderena- and with Resolution No. 1038 of August 21, 2013.

Issued by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, making it the largest protected area in the National Natural Park System and the National System of Protected Areas in Colombia.

The discovery of this area of ​​the country «Serranía de Chiribiquete» only occurred until 1987.

When on a trip between San José del Guaviare and Araracuara a storm took Carlos Castaño Uribe, then director of National Parks.

Led him to accidentally cross these Precambrian formations (from two billion years ago), after flying over more than 120 minutes.

The official was convinced to include this wonder in the system of National Natural Parks.

Parque Nacional Chiribiquete, Villavicencio, Colombia
Parque Nacional Chiribiquete, Villavicencio, Colombia

When the first Colombian scientists arrived at this mountain range that rises unsuspecting over the dense Amazon jungle.

This place was not even listed on the map.

Some had heard the stories of Richard Evans Schultes, the American botanist who traveled the Apaporis River in the 1940s looking for the best rubber species to get his country out of a crisis in the middle of World War II.

He spoke of wild streams, of rituals of the indigenous Karijona sages, of hallucinogenic, toxic and medicinal plants.

And although it did not properly reach Chiribiquete, it did catch a glimpse of some tepuis from the north (El tepuy or tepui is a particularly abrupt class of plateaus, with vertical walls and very flat tops).

In the first expeditions the magnitude of the discovery was verified.

These tours allowed to appreciate one of the best kept treasures of this reserve.

Thousands of pictograms – it is believed that there are more than 250,000 – among these formations of less than a thousand meters of altitude.

Villavicencio, Parque Nacional Chiribiquete
Villavicencio, Parque Nacional Chiribiquete

The cave paintings were made by the Karijona, an indigenous tribe that it is supposed to be extinct.

That it lived in these jungles and that for some reason they chose the plateaus as their sacred site.

The evidence the researchers collected reveals that these rocky shelters are part of a solar cult more than 20,000 years old, perhaps the most important on the continent.

The themes of the paintings revolve around hunting scenes, food gathering, and figures of animals such as the jaguar and the deer.

In turn, according to the research of Carlos Castaño Uribe, the idea of ​​the jaguar man, the shaman-jaguar and the sun-jaguar god stand out.

As an element of a very particular pattern of behavior, thought and identity throughout the territory «, symbolisms of the power relations and rituals of our ancestral cultures.

As for the flora and fauna, until then the collections made by Dr. Richards Evans Schultes.

Who reported various plant formations with trees reaching 35 and 40 meters, were known, until this year the fauna had not been studied.

However precedents of bats, armadillos, chigüiros, among others.

The vegetation in the Park area corresponds to mainland forests

Floodable forests, natural sands of white sand, savannas of Orinocense origin, rocky outcrops, ridges and shrubs associated with hills.

And two particular types of vegetation: the one associated with cracks and the another to the jets in the rivers, to name a few.

There are around 30 types of vegetation cover, but only 15 have specific information.

Villavicencio, Parque Nacional Chiribiquete, Colombia
Villavicencio, Parque Nacional Chiribiquete, Colombia

The fauna has not been extensively studied

But according to samples from some scientists and inhabitants of the area, there is a great variety.

300 species of birds.

72 species of beetles.

313 species of day butterflies.

261 species of ants.

six new species of dragonflies.

seven species of primates.

three species of otters.

four species of felines.

48 ​​species of bats have been reported.

eight of rodents.

two species of dolphins and 60 species of fish.

although by observation it is calculated that there is greater diversity.

Much of the Colombian population is unaware of the existence of the Serranía Chiribiquete National Natural Park and, even more surprisingly.

That it is considered a megadiverse and unique area in the world.

It is an area that the country is committed to contributing to and mitigating climate change and reduction of deforestation in the Amazon region and is currently nominated by the United Nations Educational.

This interests you:

La piedra del Peñol, Antioquia, Colombia

Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to be a Natural and Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The Sierra de Chiribiquete National Natural Park

Was known to many Colombians and foreigners for the exaltation of this place in our country in the movie Colombia Magia Salvaje.

Which was nominated for the Oscars in 2016 and showed cave paintings, rivers, flora and fauna, unknown to most Colombians.

But this beautiful site has been threatened by the predatory hands of those who practice illegal mining.

Because on the banks of the rivers that pass through the Sierra de Chiribiquete National Natural Park.

Parque Nacional Chiribiquete, Villavicencio
Parque Nacional Chiribiquete, Villavicencio

They are moving machinery and chemicals for the exploitation of gold, which leading to the deterioration of the park, at the end of 2016.

State forces destroyed several of these machines, but you must be alert because it is a very endemic (fragile) system.

On the other hand, the ignorance of the Chiribiquete National Park is such that in an interview with the Environment Minister Gabriel Vallejo in September 2015 with Yamid Amat.

He expressed that in the Chiribiquete National Park «there is no human life.

Except for the indigenous people who consider that they are still there, that they have never left there, but there is no human life «

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