| Serranía La Macarena | |
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IUCN Category II (National Park)
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| Location | Meta Department, Colombia |
| Nearest city | La Macarena |
Serranía de la Macarena (Macarena Mountains) is a Colombian mountain range located east of the Andes in the Meta Department. The mountains are separated by about 40 kilometers at their northern extreme from the Cordillera Oriental (). The range is orientated from north to south and is 120 kilometers in length and 30 kilometers wide. The highest peak, which is unnamed, reaches 2615 meters above sea level and is the highest point of the Llanos. The first national reserve in Colombia was established in the central part of the mountain range in accordance with a Congressional Law promulgated in 1948. The status of National Natural Park (PNN) was designated in 1971. The ecologically protected area includes 6,200 km².
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La Macarena National Park includes the ecologically unique border areas where the flora and fauna of the Amazon and the Orinoco regions meet. Due to altitude, temperatures range from 42 °F to 88 °F, and this helps to maintain a high level of biodiversity with numerous endemic species.
Within the park one can find anteaters, jaguars, cougars, deer, 8 species of monkeys, 550 species of birds, 1,200 species of insects and 100 species of reptiles. The rare mountain tapir does not occur in Serranía de la Macarena, but is found in the adjacent Cordillera de los Picachos National Park[1].
La Macarena is home to at least 48 species of orchids, and botanists studying the area have identified more than 2,000 other species of plant life.
The La Macarena National and Ecological Reserve Park is internationally known the Caño Cristales, labeled one of the most beautiful rivers in the world, which has been chronicled by the Colombian journalist and explorer Andrés Hurtado García.
There are also other important waterfalls such as Angostura I in the Guayabero and Caño Cafre rivers, surrounded by rocky edges with a great amount of petroglifos. Many waterfalls area difficult to spot due to the steep topography.
Basement rocks on the east side of the Macarenas include the Precambrian granite of the Guyana Shield in the Guaviare River valley and the San Jose del Guaviare area. The rocks of the shield are overlain by sandstones and conglomerates of the Vaupes Formation of Lower Paleozoic to the lower Oligocene age. In the Cicuco Oil Field of the Magdalena River Oligocene limestone overlies the granite basement.[2]
The integrity of the National Park has been historically threatened by the arrival of colonists since 1970, seeking land. The town of Buenavista (Meta) dates from this period.
In recent years, portions of the Park have been used both to grow coca, plant landmines and to house irregular rebel forces, because it is difficult for Colombian authorities to access and control the area.
By 2005 an estimated 45 km² of the Park's extension was used to grow drugs as part of the illegal drug trade. Increased coca cultivation has contributed to damaging the Park's ecosystem and diversity.
Despite the existence of drug crops, for many years the Park had never been subjected to controversial glyphosate fumigation, as it had been forbidden by law to do so in National Parks. Later reforms relaxed the law's restrictions, allowing for the use of fumigation only after a set criteria has been met, including viability and ecological impact studies.
In late 2005, after FARC guerrillas ambushed a number of Colombian security forces near the Park, the Colombian government publicly announced the beginning of a manual coca eradication campaign in La Macarena as a form of retaliation. Manual eradication efforts, consisting of a heavy police and military presence on the ground as a way of protecting workers, began in January 2006. These efforts lasted until the middle of the same year, manually eradicating an estimated 29.1 km² of coca from the Park.
After a number of workers and Colombian law enforcement authorities were wounded and killed due to ambushes, mines and other forms of guerrilla attacks, the government announced that fumigation would be employed to eradicate the remaining 17 km² of drug crops.
This decision has been criticized, because environmentalists fear that fumigation will contribute to the further deterioration of the Park's ecosystem.
(Spanish)Sistema de Información Ambiental Territorial de la Amazonia colombiana SIAT-AC