Let’s become Chiribiquete Guardians

 National Natural Parks of Colombia invites nationals and foreigners to join the conservation of this Natural and Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

This 2018 brought two excellent news for Natural National Parks of Colombia, the denomination by UNESCO of the Serranía de Chiribiquete Natural National Park as a World Natural and Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the expansion of the protected area. Media, individuals and organizations are increasingly interested in Chiribiquete, and of course there are many who would like to enter the protected area and get to know it; however, it will not be open to ecotourism. Right now, the process of publishing the resolution that regulates the overflights on the Park in a particular area, at a certain height and under certain conditions, is under way. Read about it:

https://old.parquesnacionales.gov.co/portal/es/en-proceso-de-reglamentacion-sobrevuelos-sobre-el-parque-nacional-natural-serrania-de-chiribiquete/

As we know, Chiribique is a national treasure and we must protect it, which is why we share with you the campaign: #ChiribiqueteGuardians (#GuardianesdeChribiquete in Spanish). Please join this initiative trough your social networks and your media.

That’s why we tell you the 10 reasons to safeguard Chiribiquete:

1. Species that have evolved within the protected area are not used to the influence of men, only to the occasional transit of indigenous communities that do not jeopardise their ecological structure.
2. Endemic species inhabit in Chiribiquete, which means that they do not exist in any other part of the planet and that if they are lost, it is forever. Therefore we cannot allow the voluntary or accidental introduction of foreign species to the territory.
3. Tepuyes, a kind of abrupt rock plateau with vertical walls and relatively flat peaks, which are characteristic of the Guyanese Shield, are delicate elements of the ecosystem despite its imposing appearance. These geological formations are highly fragile and susceptible to erosive processes and mass removal, due to their composition of very friable and crumbly sandstones. Its structure of horizontal layers and vertical fracturing systems, forms blocks that can collapse. Anthropic pressure could contribute to accelerate these processes and become high risk for people.
4. Chiribiquete maintains an offer of essential ecosystem services for the region and the planet, feeding numerous river basins and fulfilling an important role in climate regulation.
5. Chiribiquete and its buffer zone are home to 20 thousand years old communities, which have managed to preserve their customs and for whom this territory is La Maloca del Jaguar, a sacred site. It is also the home of uncontacted indigenous peoples in Colombia, whose isolation is respected by the national government.
6. The indigenous peoples who inhabit the territory are sensitive to diseases that visitors, unwittingly and without knowledge of it, could transmit to them. Therefore, in order to guarantee its survival, we must not force contact.
7. In Chiribiquete, more than fifty rock art sites have been located with at least 70,000 drawings whose painting process began 20,000 years ago and continues today thanks to the isolated indigenous peoples.
8. The Serranía de Chiribiquete is an evolutionary laboratory with exclusive access to scientists who, in a careful way with the environment, investigate in favor of its conservation and in search of discoveries that contribute to knowledge and science.
9. Chiribiquete would not support human interventions such as tourism, overflights at prohibited heights and routes, trafficking of species, agriculture or livestock (factors that contribute the most to the expansion of the agricultural frontier that is increasingly closer to the park’s limit).
10. If deforestation reaches Chiribiquete, we lose everything.

Invite your audience to be #GuardianesdeChiribiquete through the following actions

1. Reject and denounce the service providers who offer expeditions to the protected area at the email: [email protected]
2. Report deforestation.
3. Say NO to overflights that do not comply with the official regulations.
4. Learn more about this natural and archaeological treasure of Colombians through scientific publications and audiovisual material.
5. Join any initiative to protect the Serranía de Chiribiquete National Natural Park and disseminate the importance of this protected area through your social media.
6. Get to know the values of this natural and cultural heritage through places that present similar ecosystems and archaeological richness and which are open to the public. The department of Guaviare is preparing itself to receive tourists interested in knowing the famous tepuyes of the Guyanese Shield and the traces left by the peoples that ancestrally inhabited the territory.

Please share this video on your social networks

Share our photos of #GuardianesdeChiribiquete in your social networks with the information we have given you or replicate Park´s accounts:

Twitter: @ParquesColombia

Facebook: @ParquesNaturalesdeColombia

Instagram: @ParquesColombia

Drive link for photos:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xDXxmz40Vy4S6xMT8wHt6zlyJieBIzse?usp=sharing

By harming or altering this treasure of humanity we are not only damaging a country or a region, not even a continent, we are harming the entire planet. That is why we need you to be part of this immense task of safeguarding. Let’s become #GuardianesdeChiribiquete.