Los KatÃos National Park
7.8 - 77.15Koordinaten: 7 ° 48 '0 "N, 77 ° 9' 0" W Los Katios is a national park in South America in Colombia, who was appointed in 1994 as a World Heritage Site. Since 2009, the area is classified as impaired because of continuing deforestation in and on the borders of the National Park by UNESCO. Furthermore, the area under the illegal felling of precious woods, illegal fishing and hunting suffers.
Los Katios has an area of 720 km ³ and is located in the northwestern Colombia to the north of the Departaments Chocó, between the border of Panama and the west bank of the Río Atrato. The park also includes the wetlands of Tumaradó east of the river, and the land between the rivers Cacarica, Perancho and Peye. In the north joins Los Katios at the Panamanian Darién National Park.
Importance
The importance of Los Katios is its exceptionally high biodiversity and the protection of occurring only in the Darién region types. Due to the geographical location in northern Colombia on the southern edge of the Central American land bridge this region served in the Tertiary and Pleistocene as a filter for the exchange of species between North and South America. This process continues even today still continue. Los Katios is the only region in South America, occur in the Central American yew ( taxus ).
The park also serves to protect important landscape features such as the 25 m high tendal and the 100 m high waterfall and the Tilupo Tumaradó swamps.
In 1990, the park was accessible by paths and accommodations for small groups of visitors, who over the park administration in Sautatá access to the National Park.
Geography
The park covers between 50 and 600 m altitude along the foothills of the Serranía del Darién and consists of a gently rolling hills. It essentially comprises two main regions, each about half the mountains of the Serranía del Darién in the west and the river landscape of the Atrato. The Atrato is the fastest-flowing river in the world and poured 4,900 cubic meters of water per second into the Caribbean Sea.
The average temperature inside the park is 27 ° C and annual precipitation of 2000-4500 mm is very high, so that the humidity between 75% and 95%. The lowest precipitation values indicate the months of December to March.
History
The region was originally inhabited by the Kuna, an indigenous group that the Choco region had to leave the Katío - Embera by internal struggles and migrated to Panama. The Darién region, which includes Los Katios heard was historically important for the first settlers, who used the land bridge from North to South America around 20,000 years ago. In the nachkolumbischen time it was the Spanish conquistadors Rodrigo de Bastidas, Alonso de Ojeda and Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who first discovered this region in 1501.
In recent years about 1 % of the park in the space Sautatá were exploited for agriculture and were primarily used for the cultivation of sugar cane. After the establishment of the park in 1974, based around 150 families have been resettled in the nearby villages Unguía, Puente América, Tumaradó and Cacarica in the next seven years.
Vegetation and wildlife
Lowland swamp forests cover about half of the park, while the other half is covered by tropical mountain rain forests. The Caesalpinie Cativo reaches heights of up to 50 m, and in the tropical forest are mainly Ceiba petandra, and Hura crepitans Cavanillesia platanifolia ago. 1993 669 plant species were detected in the park, of which 20-25 % are endemic, ie occur only in this region.
Los Katios hosts a number of animal species that are characteristic of Central America and occur in South America only in this region, such as the mouse Heteromys desmarestianus and Graukopfguan Ortalis cinereiceps, as well as endangered species like the American crocodile Crocodylus acutus, the bush dog Speothos venaticus, the giant anteater Myrmecophaga tridactyla and the tapir Tapirus bairdii Central American.