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Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, Bolivia
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| View Partner Program Profile |
Since 1993, Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (FAN) a non-profit organization, has been managing the park under contract from the Bolivian government.
Ecotourism in Action
The ecotourism programs of FAN and the Nature Conservancy are collaborating in the development of this important activity as part of the park's conservation strategy and is designed to link the welfare of local communities to the conservation of the park. Profits earned from ecotourism at Noel Kempff help fund conservation efforts being carried out within the park and provide tangible economic and educational benefits to the local communities that surround it. Local peoples are becoming involved in the program in a variety of ways: managers of commercial activities, owner-operators of small-businesses, guides and service personnel. In order to ensure sustainability and widespread local benefit, training programs are being provided in various aspects of ecotourism and small business management.
Sites and Attractions
Noel Kempff has two guest centers: Los Fierros Camp and Flor de Oro Lodge. As the base for ecotourism activities at the southern end of Noel Kempff, Los Fierros is the gateway site to the breathtaking Caparú escarpment and the magnificent El Encanto waterfall. For those who enjoy spectacular scenery combined with a diversity of flora and fauna found few other places in the world, this location has few peers. Flor de Oro, located in the north-central section of the park, is a renovated ranch located on the Iténez River. As with Los Fierros, Flor de Oro offers access to the Caparú escarpment and is the stepping off point for the park's two largest waterfalls- Arco Iris and Ahlfeld. Both venues offer comfortable accommodations and use highly knowledgeable local guides to escort visitors through its remote and pristine natural wonders.
Conservation at the Park
Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, covering some 1.5 million hectares in northeastern Bolivia, is one of the most remote and biologically diverse areas on earth. The park is situated in a transitional zone encompassing an unparalleled variety of ecosystems: Amazonian rainforest, gallery forest, semi-deciduous tropical forest, flooded savannah, thorn scrub, cerrado and wetlands. Additionally, Noel Kempff features the Caparú plateau, an 85,000-acre Precambrian escarpment rising dramatically from the surrounding rainforest. The plateau is topped by grasslands and cerrado forests and drained by numerous perennial rivers, which give rise to 10 spectacular waterfalls.
As a result of its unique biogeographic situation, Noel Kempff is believed to contain some of the highest levels of biological diversity on earth, much of which has largely vanished from other, more accessible, parts of the Amazon. It is home to 630 species of birds (roughly one fourth of all known bird species in the Neotropics), 70 species of reptiles and 130 species of mammals including the freshwater river dolphins, the giant otter and the rare maned wolf.
View our map of ecotourism sites in South America
