Noel Kempff Mercado National Park (Spanish: Parque nacional Noel Kempff Mercado) is a national park located in the northeast part of the Santa Cruz Department, in the Province of José Miguel de Velasco, Bolivia, near the border with Brazil.
Description
Noel Kempff Mercado National Park covers 1,523,446 hectares (3,764,520 acres) of land. It includes the Huanchaca Plateau, which is 42,000 hectares and one of the largest protected areas of untouched cerrado in the world. The park is located on the Brazilian Shield in the northeast Santa Cruz Department of Bolivia. The Iténez River forms the park’s eastern and northern borders, separating it from Brazil. It is next to the 158,621 hectares (391,960 acres) Serra Ricardo Franco State Park, which was created 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 includes many different habitats, such as upland evergreen forest, deciduous forest, upland savanna (cerrado), savanna wetlands, and forest wetlands. The region has a dry season in winter and receives an average of 1,500 mm of rainfall each year.
History
The area that is now the national park was explored in 1908 by Percy Fawcett during a survey for the Bolivian government. In London, he showed pictures 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 scientist and conservationist from Bolivia. This name was chosen because of his work in the park and to remember his death in the area. Mercado was killed in the park by drug traffickers after he accidentally found a hidden cocaine laboratory on the Huanchaca plateau.
The national park was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. It is important because it includes many different types of habitats that support a wide variety of plant and animal life, including groups of large animals that are endangered worldwide.
Climate
The climate in the national park changes with the seasons. The park receives about 1,500 mm of rain each year on average. There is a dry season lasting four months, from June to September, when rainfall drops below 30 mm. Most rain falls during the austral summer, coming from thunderstorms over the Amazon basin and from storm systems that extend from the Intertropical Convergence Zone during the sunniest summer months. The average yearly temperature is 25–26 °C (77–79 °F), but during the dry season, temperatures can sometimes drop to 10 °C (50 °F) for several days when cold, dry air from Patagonia (called surazos) reaches the area.
A study of pollen layers, carbon isotope levels, and the amount of charcoal in soil shows that the evergreen rainforests in the park were not always present. Evidence from pollen samples indicates that the area, now covered by semi-deciduous and evergreen forests, was once savanna and semi-deciduous forest. For many thousands of years, savanna covered the region, but over time, vegetation changed. Starting around the middle of the Holocene, savanna gradually turned into semi-deciduous forest, and later into evergreen rainforest. This change is linked to higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, more rainfall each year, and shorter, less severe dry seasons. These changes are believed to be caused by increased storm activity in the region, which is connected to changes in Earth’s orbit, as explained by the Milankovitch Astronomical Theory. Evergreen rainforests appeared in the region about two to three thousand years ago.
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 that spans 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 the two countries. The tableland is surrounded by steep cliffs that range in height from 200 to 700 meters. The rocks forming the tableland are Proterozoic sandstones, which were deposited about 1 billion years ago. These sandstones were intruded by a complex of tholeiitic sills and dykes. Beneath the sandstones lies an older layer of granite and metamorphic rocks, which are visible across the Amazon plain. The surface of the tableland is covered by Cretaceous sandstones, and layers of laterite and siliceous duricrust indicate periods of uplift and erosion during the Tertiary era.
The Huanchaca Plateau within the park rises 600 to 900 meters above sea level. It is made of Precambrian sandstone and quartzite from the Brazilian Shield. The cliffs of the Huanchaca Plateau, also called Caparu Meseta, reach heights of up to 300 meters (985 feet) in some areas. Waterfalls have formed in several locations, including the 88-meter (290-foot) Arcoiris Falls, the 25–45-meter (80–150-foot) Frederico Ahlfeld Falls, and the 80-meter (260-foot) El Encanto Falls.
The plateau has patches of evergreen forest growing on deep, nutrient-rich soils. 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 transition into dry forests near the southern edge of the park.
Flora
The park is home to about 4,000 types of vascular plants. The area includes many different habitats, such as tall evergreen rainforests, gallery forests, semi-deciduous tropical forests, deciduous forests, forests with many climbing plants, areas dominated by Attalea phalerata palms, flooded forests, termite plains, flooded savannas, muddy plains with forest islands, palm swamps, and cerrado dry forests. Scientists have identified 2,705 different plant species so far. Because the park has so many different habitats, these plants are divided into sections based on where they live. Of the 2,705 identified plants, 1,500 grow in moist forests, 800 in cerrado, 700 in dry forests, 500 in savanna wetlands, and another 500 in aquatic and disturbed habitats, as well as rock outcrops. In addition to the 2,705 identified plants, 6,000 more are currently being studied.
The most diverse plant family in the park is Fabaceae. This family is found in all ecosystems except where plants grow on other plants. Some plant families, like 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 best studied group of animals in the park. The bird life in the park is among the most varied 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 mammals less thoroughly, especially bats. Several large animals are listed in the Red Book of Bolivian Vertebrates, which includes species like the Pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus), marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus), maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), greater rhea (Rhea americana), and giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla).
The park is home to about 74 types of reptiles and 62 types of amphibians. Reptiles in the park include species such as 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).