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Earlier this month, Gustavo Petro's government announced that it had declared a new national natural park in Colombia. It is the Serranía de Manacacías, which, with an area of 68,000 hectares and located in San Martín de los Llanos in Meta, became the 61st National Park (PNN) in the country. However, declaring an area as a protected area alone is not enough to protect it. For these areas to achieve their goal, conservation agreements, resources and people are also required. For several years now, the Parques Como Vamos Observatory has been responsible for doing just that: it publishes an annual report that tracks the status of these protected areas in Colombia, analyzing whether they have received resources for their management and/or what the main threats are.
This Tuesday, Parques Como Vamos presented its latest report, which provides an overview of the current situation of these 60 parks in the country, excluding Manacacías. In total, the PNN amounts to more than 23 million hectares, representing 11.18% of the national area (12.76% of the continental area and 9.25% of the marine area). 83% of the area of these parks is still covered by forest, representing 21% of all forests in Colombia, with an even greater presence in the Amazon, where 76% of these ecosystems are found.
The report also recalls that natural parks are a refuge for the country's flora and fauna: 31% of Colombia's biodiversity is preserved there, with almost 24,000 species of animals, plants and fungi. In addition, there are around 1,767 endemic species living in this system of protected areas, being most common in the Las Orquídeas, Farallones de Cali, Chingaza and Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta PNNs. However, the analysis also states: “8% of these endemic species are endangered in some category.”
Although deforestation has declined, it still poses a risk
There is somewhat good news for national parks: the deforestation trend in these areas appears to be declining (albeit at a slow pace). While in 2019-2020 deforestation in these areas was 19,429 hectares and fell to 14,239 hectares in 2020-2021, in the period between 2021 and 2022 it was only 12,380 hectares, according to the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Meteorology Environmental Studies (Idea). This means that in the last year analyzed, up to 10% of nationwide deforestation occurred in the PNN, while the last figure reached 11%.
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And while this is a sign of improvement, the authors continue to sound the alarm bells because if we add up the total area deforested in the PNN since 2019, that means a total of more than 46,000 hectares have been lost, which is equivalent to the size of the PNN Munchique – located in Cauca – with 46,982 hectares.
A road passes a deforested area of Chiribiquete National Park in March 2022. Andres Cardona
“A special call is made given the possible loss of the ecological connection of the Andean-Amazon corridor of Picachos, Tinigua and Macarena and the stability of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, one of the last biodiversity protected areas in northern Colombia and one of the areas with the highest number endemic species in the country,” the document says. As for the NNPs that suffered the most deforestation last year, the Parque Como mentions Vamos Tinigua (4,872 hectares), the Sierra de la Macarena (2,737 hectares) and the Serranía de Chiribiquete (1,270 hectares).
Other threats surrounding the PNN include illegal cultivation – present in 14 parks – and hot spots, which this year totaled 16,145 in the 60 parks, but “will last until 2024 according to the forecasts of the El Niño phenomenon, that predicts a longer period of time, could increase”. Periods of drought in Colombia.”
However, when these three factors are added to other threats such as armed conflict, ecosystem destruction, illegal mining and pollution, 68% of NNP are at risk of losing their ecosystem stability. The most critical NNPs include Catatumbo Barí, Paramillo and the Farallones de Cali.
Even without money or enough people
Protecting an area means devoting resources to it. And so far, the money invested in the NNPs “is not enough to operate them or achieve their conservation goals.” Although there was a 28% increase in general spending on the parks system between 2021 and 2022, the number has fallen in three key regions of the country in the last years analyzed. Specifically, the western Andes territory received 19% fewer resources, followed by the Amazon with 7% less. “On the contrary, the Caribbean, Pacific and Orinoquía regions recorded increases of 38%, 108% and 106%, respectively.” This is a scenario that worries the report's authors because it highlights the volatility of resources.
Rock art on a cliff in Chiribiquete Park, in an archive image. Nicolo Filippo Rosso (Bloomberg)
And if there is no money for the PNN, there seems to be no major effort to hire people to protect it. The report shows that between 2021 and 2022, the number of contractors working for PNN increased from 966 to 735; That is, there was a decrease of 231 people hired under the service modality.
Additionally, there are differences in the number of employees hired for regional park areas. While 167 contractors were registered for the Caribbean region, only 18 contractors were identified for the Amazon, which has the largest extent of protected areas.
For this reason, one of the report's main demands is to modernize the management of the PNN. “Modernization requires not only greater budget allocation, but also innovation in prioritizing human and economic resources in line with the conservation objectives of each NNP, the threats they face and their vulnerabilities,” they conclude.