Alejandro de Humboldt National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Alejandro de Humboldt) is a national park located in the Cuban provinces of Holguín and Guantánamo. It is named after the German scientist Alexander von Humboldt, who visited the island in 1800 and 1801. The park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2001 because of its large size, wide range of elevations, variety of rock types, many different land shapes, and home to many plant and animal species found nowhere else.
Geography
The rivers that flow from the highest points of the park are among the largest in the Caribbean islands. The park is considered the most humid area in Cuba, which supports a wide variety of plant and animal life. The park covers an area of 711.38 km² (274.67 sq mi), including 685.72 km² (264.76 sq mi) of land and 22.63 km² (8.74 sq mi) of ocean. The elevation ranges from sea level up to 1,168 meters (3,832 feet) at El Toldo Peak.
The area near Alejandro de Humboldt National Park has complex geology, including karst landscapes formed from oceanic rock during the Cretaceous period. This region is unique because its landscape is ultrabasic, meaning it is made up mostly of serpentine soils and peridotites.
Wildlife
The area that makes up the national park was a safe place during the Pleistocene era, when glaciers covered much of the Earth. This area had a climate that stayed mostly the same even as glaciers came and went. Because of this, the park has a high number of species found only there and a wide variety of living things. The rocks in the park are very basic and harmful to some plants, which has led to the quick development of new plant species. Sixteen of Cuba's 28 plant species found only in Cuba are protected in the park, including plants like Dracaena cubensis and Podocarpus ekmanii. Animals living in the park include many types of parrots, lizards, hummingbirds, the endangered Cuban solenodon (a species found only in Cuba), hutia, and snails.
More than 900 different plant species have been found in the park, along with 45 types of reptiles, 21 kinds of amphibians, and 10 species of mammals.
The park has been recognized as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because it is home to many bird species, including northern bobwhites, white crowned and plain pigeons, grey-fronted and blue-headed quail-doves, Antillean nighthawks, Cuban nightjars, Antillean palm-swifts, Cuban emeralds, bee hummingbirds, great lizard cuckoos, Cuban pygmy owls, bare-legged owls, Cuban kites, Gundlach's hawks, Cuban trogons, todies, ivory-billed, Cuban green, and West Indian woodpeckers, Cuban amazons and parakeets, loggerhead and giant kingbirds, La Sagra's flycatchers, Cuban pewees, vireos, crows, gnatcatchers, solitaires, Oriente warblers, Cuban orioles, tawny-shouldered and Cuban blackbirds, Greater Antillean grackles, western spindalises, and Cuban bullfinches and grassquits.
History
The Alexander von Humboldt National Park has been an area not used much by people, with only one known archaeological site from the pre-Columbian period. This site is located in the coastal area of Aguas Verdes. During the 18th and 19th centuries, some areas on the edges of the park were used as refuges or camps by maroons.
The park started being created in the 1960s, when the Jaguani and Cupeyal del Norte nature reserves were declared. This continued in the 1980s with the proposal of the Ojito del Agua Refuge, which was linked to the last time the royal woodpecker was seen. This was the only remaining place where this species lived, as it had already disappeared elsewhere in the United States and Mexico. In 1996, these protected areas were combined to form a national park named after Alexander von Humboldt. It is one of the most important biosphere reserves in the Caribbean region. Together with Cuchillas del Toa, it was named a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site in 2001.
This unique ecosystem has special plants and animals, with some of the highest levels of species found only in this area of the island group.