Tunari National Park

The Tunari National Park ( Parque Nacional Tunari Spanish, PNT ) is a national park in eastern Andean high mountain country in South America Bolivia.

Location

The National Park is part of the Cordillera de Cochabamba and is located in the department of Cochabamba. The National Park takes place in a semi-circle north around the cities Sacaba, Cochabamba and Quillacollo. The highest elevation within the National Park is the Cerro Tunari at 17 ° 17 ' S, 66 ° 22' W 17.289444444444 - 66.3680555555565035 with a height of 5035 m above sea level. NN.

As boundaries of the national parks were established in 1962 " to the north of the ridge in the region Tablas, in the south of the development plan according to the city perimeter bounding ring road, to the east of the gorge Arocagua and to the west the gorge of Taquiña ". Through a Succession Act 1991, the boundaries of the park were circumcised 2750 m in the south to the contour line, whereas in the east to the river Kenko Mayu (or Kenko ) and extended in the west to the northern edge of the narrow stream of Parotani.

Objective

Objective of establishing the park was mainly to find solutions to the specific problems of the city of Cochabamba and its neighboring communities. These problems are especially shortages of drinking water in times of drought and floods during the rainy season. In addition, flooding the torrents from the northern canyons soil, tree trunks and stones into the valley, and mudslides destroy fields and houses.

Formation

The Parque Tunari was created on the basis of a decree of 2 August 1939 at 1946 north of the city of Cochabamba. However, this measure has had little success, on the one hand continue, on the other hand, the seemingly derelict land were burned grass and trees were felled by surrounding communities and landowners settled by the immigrant population rapidly to the foot of the mountain.

However, the natural disaster of 1958 showed the urgent need to curb mudslides and flooding caused by protective measures and settlement bans. Therefore, it was rededicated by the Decree of 30 March 1962, the Parque Tunari National Park and raised in 1983 in the force of law. Specifically, this meant that management and maintenance of the park from the local level were raised to the national level and as an intervention of the central government and the armed forces was made possible.

However, the continuing population pressure and the weakness of the national and regional administration could hardly prevent "spontaneous" settlements until well into the national park, the sealing of the soil and the pollution of surface water by latrines in the following decades. This did not change the fact that in 1968, the park placed under the Ministry of Agriculture and an organizing committee was established.

Measures

Despite the barely braked immigration and settlement within the National Park effective measures have been taken to reduce soil erosion and landslides during seasonal rains and stabilize the water supply in the recent decades in some areas of the park. These included mainly afforestation, the establishment of a forest tree nursery, the construction of dams and a backup of actions by security guards. Receives support park management by the Agencia para el Desarrollo y la Suiza of Cooperation ( COSUDE ), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC ) of the Swiss government.