Noel Kempff Mercado National Park

The Noel Kempff Mercado National Park is a protected area in the Amazon basin in Bolivia and is since 2000 a World Natural Heritage Site by UNESCO. The National Park is located in the northeast of the country in the department of Santa Cruz, on the border with Brazil, was established on 28 June 1979.

Description

The national park has an area of ​​15.234 square kilometers and consists of a part of the Huanchaca high plateau (750 m) and the surrounding lowlands (200 m). The park is mostly very rich in water and crossed by many rivers with waterfalls, lagoons and floodplains. The diverse vegetation ranging from tropical rainforest to dry forest to savannah. Due to the high diversity of habitats within a small area, the park is unusually rich in species, in addition to the 4,000 plants and numerous species of insects are known 139 mammal species, 621 birds, 75 reptiles, 62 amphibians and 250 species of fish.

The park is due to its remote location difficult to reach and touristy little developed. There are two small visitor centers: Flor de Oro in the north and Los Fierros in the south of the park. Among the most visited places include two continuous waterfalls, the 88 meter high Catarata Arco Iris and the 80 meter high Catarata El Encanto.

The park was initially the name Huanchaca National Park was established in 1988 and renamed in honor of Noel Kempff Mercado biologist Professor, who had rendered outstanding services to the establishment of the park and who was murdered in 1986 at a research mission in the park of drug smugglers.

The report of an expedition to the exceptional property of the present park in 1910 inspired the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 's novel " The Lost World ".