Latest Entries

The Orinoco River rises in the Parima Mountains of southern Venezuela and sweeps in a great arc through Venezuela and Colombia before spreading into a vast delta on the Atlantic coast. It is the third-largest river on Earth by discharge and a homeland for peoples such as the Warao, Piaroa, Ye'kwana and Yanomami. Its basin shelters river dolphins, giant otters and the critically endangered Orinoco crocodile, and it now faces mining, mercury contamination and oil-industry pressures that put much of that richness at risk.

Lake Titicaca lies in the northern Altiplano, between Peru's Puno Region and Bolivia's La Paz Department, within the Central Andean wet puna. It covers 8,372 sq km and is the largest lake in South America by volume. It is often called the world's highest navigable lake, a title that refers to commercial vessels rather than altitude alone, and despite its elevation, it never freezes. The Andes that enclose the basin rise on both sides, and the lake itself occupies a tectonic depression.

The Central Andean wet puna is a cold, moist, high-elevation grassland that runs along the Andes from northern Peru to northern Bolivia, above the tree line at roughly 3,500 m. It forms a long, narrow, often fragmented band between the dry Sechura Desert to the west and the wet Peruvian Yungas to the east, creating abrupt transitions over short distances. To the north, it gives way to the Cordillera Central páramo, and to the south to the Central Andean puna.

The Central Andean dry puna is a cold, arid grassland and shrubland that occupies the southern part of the central Andes along the Cordillera Occidental. It lies between the tree line and the permanent snow line, mostly above about 3,000 m, and is the driest of the three puna ecoregions, receiving less than 400 mm of rain a year and having an eight-month dry season. Its landscape includes snow-capped volcanoes, high plateaus, shallow lagoons, and salt flats.

Lauca National Park lies in the northernmost Chilean Andes, in the commune of Putre in the Arica y Parinacota Region, along the border with Bolivia. It covers 137,883 hectares of the Altiplano and the surrounding mountains, and borders Bolivia's Sajama National Park. Together with Las Vicuñas National Reserve and the Salar de Surire Natural Monument, it forms the Lauca Biosphere Reserve. The landscape is part of the Central Andean dry puna.

Morro Moreno National Park occupies the southern end of the Mejillones Peninsula, in the Coastal Range of Chile's Antofagasta Region, in the communes of Antofagasta and Mejillones, and covers about 7,300 hectares. The peninsula it sits on is wider than it is long, reaching only about 20 km into the Pacific, and in the driest desert on Earth, the park's massif is where coastal fog, known as camanchaca, sustains an island of life.

Radal Siete Tazas National Park, in Chile's Maule Region, protects the Claro River's seven basalt pools and waterfalls, carved into ancient lava flows from volcanic activity in the area. The park's upper basin also marks an ecological transition between the drought-tolerant Mediterranean vegetation of central Chile and the moist evergreen forests farther south, creating a distinctive mix of plant and animal life.

Salar del Huasco National Park protects a high-Andean wetland that lies in the commune of Pica, in the Tarapacá Region of northern Chile, at about 3,800 m on the altiplano. The park covers the whole basin of the salar, about 1,500 sq km of steppe, bofedal wetlands, and shallow lagoons that Chile's environment ministry has described as one of the most pristine wetlands in the altiplano and an important water reserve in the driest desert on Earth.

Volcán Isluga National Park lies in the Andes of northern Chile's Tarapacá Region, in the Tarapacá altiplano, and protects about 175,000 hectares of high puna around a sacred Aymara volcano, one of the world's highest geyser fields, and an 18th-century church that remains the ceremonial heart of Aymara life. Its landscape of volcanoes, lagoons, and bunchgrass steppe is the Central Andean dry puna.

Tolhuaca National Park lies in the Andean foothills of the Araucanía Region, in the commune of Curacautín, about 140 km from Temuco. It covers 6,374 hectares of araucaria and southern beech forest, lakes, and waterfalls, and is reached via a gravel road from Curacautín. The name Tolhuaca is Mapudungun and is usually translated as "cow's brow" or "cow's forehead," a reference to the shape of the volcano that dominates its skyline.