The National Government expanded the protection area of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Natural Park to more than half a million hectares, one of the protected areas of the Colombian natural national park system, located next to the Caribbean Sea.
According to information released by the Ministry of the Environment, the measure, agreed with the four ancestral indigenous communities Kogui, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kakuamo, who live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, seeks to protect one of the most emblematic natural and cultural heritage of the Colombian Caribbean and the country.
“This is a historic decision with the four towns of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, with the purpose of safeguarding the water, the survival of the towns and, above all, protecting it from mining and large infrastructure works and large-scale agriculture. in this national reserve, not only environmental, but cultural of the country”, said Minister Susana Muhamad.
Thus, a total of 573,312 protected hectares in the mountain range is reached, after adding the 172,000 hectares that are now a National Natural Park, which is the strictest conservation category in the country, with which it seeks to protect the culture of indigenous peoples. , its survival and the water star that is the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
The Minister of the Environment highlighted that today the South American country has 49 million protected hectares, which, according to the official, “consolidates Colombia as a world power of life” and added that “responsible nature tourism must be carried out, articulating this activity with the communities.
REGIONAL DIALOGUE
The director of National Natural Parks, Luis Olmedo, explained that “we are going to start a process of ecological restoration with the communities and a process of regional dialogue because the national parks belong to all Colombians.”
“We are going to have a very active dialogue with the regional and municipal systems of protected areas,” he added.
The official indicated that three major processes are now coming, such as restoration, education and the strengthening of organizations and social dialogue in order to work on the protection of cultural diversity, the uses and exploitation that indigenous peoples have given it for millennia. from the Sierra Nevada to their territory.
Gonzalo Andrade, coordinator of the Permanent Commission for Protected Areas of the Colombian Academy of Sciences and director of the Institute of Natural Sciences, indicated that the expansion of the protected area “is something very important for the Sierra, for the conservation of biodiversity and its ecosystems”.
COASTAL ELEVATION
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Natural Park was declared by Unesco as a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site in 1979 and is the highest coastal elevation in the world, with 5,775 meters above sea level just 42 kilometers from the sea .
There are all the thermal floors that exist in Colombia, as well as jungle, mountain forest and Andean moors.
As for fauna, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta has a great variety of wild animals, including some 628 species of birds, 120 mammals and 142 amphibians and reptiles, many of them endemic.