Noel Kempff Mercado National Park is a national park in Bolivia. It is located in the northeast part of the Santa Cruz Department, in the Province of José Miguel de Velasco. The park is on the border between Bolivia and Brazil.
Description
Noel Kempff Mercado National Park spans 1,523,446 hectares (3,764,520 acres) of land. It includes the Huanchaca Plateau, also known as Huanchaca Meseta or Serrania de Huanchaca, which is one of the largest protected areas of undisturbed cerrado in the world. The park is located on the Brazilian Shield in the northeast Santa Cruz Department of Bolivia. The Iténez River forms its eastern and northern borders, separating it from neighboring Brazil. It borders the 158,621 hectares (391,960 acres) Serra Ricardo Franco State Park, established in 1997, in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. The park lies in a transition zone where the Amazon rainforest and cerrado, a type of dry forest and savanna, meet. It contains a variety of habitats, including upland evergreen forest, deciduous forest, upland savanna (cerrado), savanna wetlands, and forest wetlands. The region experiences a distinct dry season during winter, with an average annual precipitation of 1,500 mm.
History
The area that is now the national park was explored in 1908 by Percy Fawcett during a survey mission for the Bolivian government. In London, Fawcett showed pictures of the region to Arthur Conan Doyle, which inspired Doyle to write the novel The Lost World.
The park was created on June 28, 1979, and was first called Parque Nacional Huanchaca. In 1988, the park was renamed Parque Nacional Noel Kempff Mercado to honor Noel Kempff Mercado, a biologist and conservationist from Bolivia. The name change recognized his scientific work in the park and his tragic death there. Mercado was killed by drug traffickers after he accidentally discovered a hidden cocaine laboratory on the Huanchaca plateau.
In 2000, the national park was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This recognition highlights the park’s importance because it includes many different types of habitats that support a wide variety of plant and animal life. These habitats are home to groups of animals that are at risk of becoming endangered worldwide.
Climate
The climate in the national park changes with the seasons and has an average yearly rainfall of about 1,500 mm. There is a dry season lasting four months from June to September, during which rainfall drops below 30 mm. Most rain falls during the summer in the Southern Hemisphere, brought by thunderstorms over the Amazon basin and the movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone during the sunniest part of the year. The average yearly temperature is 25–26 °C (77–79 °F), but during the dry season, temperatures can sometimes fall to 10 °C (50 °F) for several days when cold, dry air from Patagonia (called surazos) reaches the area.
A study of pollen cores, carbon isotopes, and charcoal in the soil shows that the evergreen rainforests in the park did not always exist. Pollen samples reveal that the area was once covered by savanna and semi-deciduous forest instead of the current mix of semi-deciduous and evergreen forest. For many thousands of years, savanna was the main vegetation, but over time, the landscape changed. Starting in the middle of the Holocene era, savanna gradually gave way to semi-deciduous forest, and later to evergreen rainforest. This change is linked to higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, more rainfall, and shorter, less severe dry seasons caused by increased regional thunderstorms. These changes are explained by the Milankovitch Astronomical Theory, which describes how shifts in Earth’s orbit affect climate. The rainforest appeared in the last two to three thousand years.
Climate change could cause the rainforest to shrink again. A drier climate might increase the frequency of fires, leading to a shift from rainforest to drier forest types. If this happens, some rainforest species might move to new areas. However, because there are "latitudinal landscape corridors" that allow species to move, this risk is lower in this region compared to other parts of Bolivia.
Geology
The Park is covered by a large tableland measuring 7,000 square kilometers. On the Bolivian side, this area is called Serrania Huanchaca, and on the Brazilian side, it is named Sererania Ricardo Franco. The Rio Verde River separates these two regions and marks the border between the countries. The tableland is surrounded by steep cliffs, which range in height from 200 to 700 meters. The rocks that form the tableland are Proterozoic sandstones, created about 1 billion years ago. These sandstones were later intruded by a complex of tholeiitic sills and dykes. Beneath these rocks lies an older layer of granites and metamorphic rocks, which are visible on the Amazonic plain. The surface of the tableland is covered by Cretaceous sandstones, and layers of laterites and siliceous duricrusts indicate the effects of uplift and erosion during the Tertiary period.
The Huanchaca Plateau within the park rises 600 to 900 meters above sea level. It is made up of Precambrian sandstone and quartzite from the Brazilian Shield. The cliffs of the Huanchaca Plateau, also known as Caparu Meseta, reach heights of up to 300 meters (985 feet). In many places, these cliffs have formed waterfalls, including Arcoiris Falls (88 meters or 290 feet), Frederico Ahlfeld Falls (25–45 meters or 80–150 feet), and El Encanto Falls (80 meters or 260 feet).
The plateau has areas of evergreen forest where the soil is deep and rich in nutrients. These fertile soils support dense forests, while areas with heavily weathered sandstone and thin soil layers support open savannah. To the west, the lowland plain is covered by Cenozoic alluvial sediments and is dominated by wet rainforests. These forests gradually change into dry forests near the southern edge of the park.
Flora
The park is home to about 4,000 types of vascular plants, which are plants with veins that carry water and nutrients. The area includes many different habitats, such as tall evergreen rainforests, gallery forests, semi-deciduous tropical forests, deciduous forests, forests dominated by lianas (vining plants), palm brakes with Attalea phalerata palms, flooded forests, termite plains, flooded savannas, muddy plains with forest islands, palm swamps, and cerrado dry forests. Scientists have already identified 2,705 plant species. Because the park has many different habitats, these species are divided into sections. Of the 2,705 identified plants, 1,500 live in moist forests, 800 in cerrado, 700 in dry forests, 500 in savanna wetlands, and 500 in aquatic and disturbed habitats, as well as rock outcrops. In addition to the 2,705 identified species, 6,000 more are being studied to determine their classification.
The most diverse plant family in the park is Fabaceae. This family is found in all ecosystems except on other plants (epiphytes). Some plant families, such as Rubiaceae, Melastomataceae, Bignoniaceae, and Apocynaceae, grow well in all the park's habitats. Other plant families are better suited to specific habitats, such as cerrado (Gramineae, Cyperaceae, Labiatae, and Compositae) or savanna wetlands (Lythraceae, Sterculiaceae, Onagraceae, Eriocaulaceae, and Xyridaceae).
Fauna
The park is home to at least 139 types of mammals, such as otters, river dolphins, tapirs, spider and howler monkeys, giant armadillos, giant anteaters, and pumas. It also has 620 types of birds, including nine kinds of macaw and 20 kinds of parrot. Birds are the group of animals that scientists have studied the most in the park. The bird variety in the park is among the greatest in the Americas.
This area has large groups of large animals, such as lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris), brocket deer (Mazama spp.), jaguars (Panthera onca), and spider monkeys (Ateles belzebuth). Most mammal species live in the humid forest areas. Scientists have studied the mammal variety less thoroughly, especially bats. Some large animals in the park are listed in the Red Book of Bolivian Vertebrates. These include the Pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus), marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus), maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), greater rhea (Rhea americana), and giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla).
There are about 74 types of reptiles and 62 types of amphibians found in the park. Reptiles include species like the green anaconda (Eunectes murinus), yellow anaconda (Eunectes notaeus), yacare caiman (Caiman crocodilus yacare), black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), yellow-spotted river turtle (Podocnemis unifilis), Charapa turtle (Podocnemis expansa), red-footed tortoise (Geochelone carbonaria), and Brazilian giant tortoise (Geochelone denticulata).