Colombia

Chiribiquete National Park

WHS Score 2.53
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Votes for Chiribiquete National Park

3.0

  • Ludvan

3.5

  • Zoë Sheng

Chiribiquete National Park - "The Maloca of the Jaguar" is a very large and inaccessible national park in the Amazon rainforest, known for its tepuis and painted rock shelters.

The tepui or tabletop setting has led to a high level of endemism, with numbers expected to rise when more research will be done in the future. The park is home to a healthy population of jaguar and other vulnerable mammal species. It also protects flooded forests called “Purus Varze”. Sixty rock shelters with ca. 75,000 paintings are present at the foot of the tepuis. The depicted scenes are linked to a purported cult of the jaguar and their ceremonial use extends into the present day by isolated indigenous communities.

Community Perspective: tourism into the park is not allowed because of the “potential threat to the rights .. of the voluntarily isolated and uncontacted indigenous peoples” (IUCN Outlook 2020). The only way to catch a glimpse is “through flyovers by small planes on pre-arranged flight paths that are designed to be far away from known human settlements”. Zoë reports about a visit to an area near San José del Guaviare with similar (but uninscribed) rock art.

Site Info

Official Information
Full Name
Chiribiquete National Park – “The Maloca of the Jaguar” (ID: 1174)
Country
Colombia
Status
Inscribed 2018 Site history
History of Chiribiquete National Park
2018: Inscribed
Inscribed
2012: Revision
Renominated on new Tentative List, changed from Parque Nacional Natural Chiribiquete (29/10/1993)
2005: Requested by State Party to not be examined
Withdrawn by Colombia
WHS Type
Mixed
Criteria
  • iii
  • ix
  • x
Links
UNESCO
whc.unesco.org
All Links
UNESCO.org
Related Resources
News Article
  • April 27, 2024 reuters.com — Colombia's Chiribiquete park to receive $1 million annually for at least 30 years
  • April 3, 2021 news.mongabay.com — Deforestation rises in Colombia’s Chiribiquete National Park as cattle invade
  • Aug. 13, 2019 itv.com — Cocaine gangs used to have this land on lockdown – but the new war in the vanishing Amazon is all too clear to see

Community Information

  • Community Category
  • Natural landscape: Mountain
  • Archaeological site: Rock Art
Travel Information
Not open to tourists
Not open to tourists
At present, there is no tourism allowed inside the property and it is important …
Recent Connections
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Connections of Chiribiquete National Park
Geography
  • Equator
    "It spans along the equator between -74° and -71°30' longitude and -0°20' to +1°42' latitude." (wikivoyage)
  • Amazon Basin
    Chiribiquete National Park contains the drainage basins of the Mesay, Cuñare, San Jorge and Amú Rivers. Most of the rivers in the park are tributaries of the Caquetá River, which is in turn a tributary of the Amazon River. (wiki)
  • Canyons
    "With swooping aerial footage and detailed close-ups, it reveals a landscape of canyons and caves, lakes and lagoons, rivers and rock masses"

    See www.theguardian.com

Trivia
History
Ecology
Religion and Belief
  • Shamanism
    ceremonies involving shamans are painted - AB ev
  • Living indigenous religions
    Criterion (iii): Chiribiquete is even today considered to be of mythical importance by several groups (AB ev)
Human Activity
  • Rubber
    "At the beginning of the XX century, the Karijonas were displaced by the Colombian and Peruvian rubber tappers against whom they tried to rebel. The German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grünberg described the first struggles that took place in 1903. The clans were killed and enslaved" (Nomin file). Lost Tribes' Saved through Creation of Massive Colombian Park - "No one has inhabited these sites for many, many years. The Amazonian Picassos who painted these masterpieces are believed to have been members of the Karijona tribe, a once fierce and populous group. A Spanish soldier who visited the region in the 1790s estimated a population of about 15,000 Karijonas. Introduced diseases in the 19th century decreased the numbers of Karijonas to around 10,000. The turn of the 20th century brought the evils of the rubber boom when groups like the infamous Casa Arana killed, enslaved and mutilated thousands of Karijonas and other neighboring tribes......by 1920 the Karijonas had dwindled to around 1,000, and today — sadly — only 60 remain."

    See www.livescience.com

  • Pictographs
  • Hand Paintings or Hand Prints

    See www.theguardian.com

  • Human Migration
    "Apparent evidence of migration of Carib groups has been found among the Chiribiquete pictographs." (Unesco)
WHS on Other Lists
  • Centres of Plant Diversity
    SA7 Chiribiquete-Araracuara-Cahuinari Region - " Despite the fact that limited scientific research has been undertaken in the property, data available shows that 2,939 species have been recorded. These include 1,801 species of vascular plants"
Timeline
  • Late Pleistocene
    The rock art is associated with the earliest periods of human settlement in South America, perhaps around 20,000 BCE (AB ev)
Visiting conditions
  • No road access
    Walk in only (there were illegal airstrips on some tepuis during the heydays of the illegal drugs production though).
  • Not open to tourists
    At present, there is no tourism allowed inside the property and it is important to strictly control any tourism access. (AB ev)
WHS Names
  • Protection of a single named species
    Jaguar: "Chiribiquete is home to many iconic species including Jaguar, Puma, Lowland Tapir, Giant Otter, Howler Monkey, Brown Woolly Monkey." (OUV)
  • Epic Subtitles
    Maloca (= traditional long house or “home”) of the Jaguar
  • Named after a Mountain
    The "Chiribiquete Mountains are a group of isolated table mountains in the Amazon Region of Colombia. The mountains are part of the western edge of the Guiana Shield" (Wiki)

    See en.wikipedia.org

News
reuters.com 04/27/2024
Colombia's Chiribiquete park to re…
news.mongabay.com 04/03/2021
Deforestation rises in Colombia’s …
itv.com 08/13/2019
Cocaine gangs used to have this la…
Recent Visitors
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Visitors of Chiribiquete National Park
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Community Reviews

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First published: 21/09/19.

Zoë Sheng

Chiribiquete National Park

Chiribiquete National Park (Inscribed)

Chiribiquete National Park by Zoë Sheng

Chiribiquete NP is off limits for everyone. There are uncontacted tribes within the park and it is our modern belief to have them make the choice to contact us instead. I have a pessimistic thinking that there will be forest fires eradicating the tribe before that happens.

Even with the national park so taboo there have been some expeditions into the park to view the rock art, by experts and by the evaluation team to inscribe it. That's about it. No road leads even close to the park. Update: as of mid 2019 flyovers are permitted and I saw this 3-4 day tour that includes a flyover AND the rock art visit which is probably the way to go. Just flying over from Bogota seems possible but all you will see is tree tops?

With all that out of the way, how did I "visit" the park? Well, of course I didn't. Not the core zone. There is a beautiful alternative to see the rock art north of the park. It still takes an overnight bus to San José del Guaviare, a local car to Cerro Azul by 4WD to see them, another day for nature, then another overnighter back to Bogota. This is done by a tour company from Bogota which I shall not mention in the review but gladly so in the forum on request. So the rock art is the "same" but this part is not inscribed. It probably should be, but it doesn't fit …

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