Jardín, Colombia, natural park

The peripheral areas of Antioquia's southwest were kept away from the state authorities and market for centuries. During the 19th century, they were a border brand with Cauca State; during the last decades of the 20th century, they were the Farc theater of war; in the intermediate period few were interested in the routes that could connect the natural intersection of Antioquia, Chocó, Risaralda and Caldas. Neither the miners nor the sawyers nor the ranchers managed to destroy the natural environment of the region significantly, and that now represents an unsuspected gift and an opportunity.

The area of ​​the Farallones del Citará was declared a Protective Forest Reserve in 2008 and, in 2009, the Integrated Management District of the Jardín-Támesis Cuchilla (which also includes the Andes, Jericó and Caramanta lands) was created. Are, in total, 58 thousand hectares. There are things to do, such as turning the Farallones into a national park, integrating protected areas in the region and making efficient control against predation. Apart from what the State achieves, through National Parks or autonomous regional corporations, we must count on what the private sector does.

Since 1993, the law (99) created the figure of Natural Reserve of Civil Society to incorporate into the protected areas those properties that "by autonomous decision of their owners" became "natural reserve for the protection of an ecosystem or natural habitat" " In many cases, it is about restoration or reproduction of certain conditions for the promotion of wild flora and fauna. In the specific case of Jardín, the private protected area is larger than the public one. There are eight reserves of civil society, from some with very large areas to small farms, some managed by NGOs or entities such as the Jardín Botánico de Medellín and others by natural persons.

The largest is the Mesenia-Paramillo Reserve with almost 3 thousand hectares and land in Risaralda and Antioquia. It is managed by Fundación Colibrí and supported by Saving Species, among other entities with a scientific and environmental background. Without being it, it is perhaps the most virgin of the zones of Garden and Andes, and connects the ecosystems of the Chocó and the western mountain range. Home of orchids, hummingbirds, mammals (one recently reviewed: olinguito). A two-day excursion -with a normal physical state- would even allow access to the summit of Cerro Paramillo (9,184 ft). The smallest is Jardín de Rocas, a meeting place for the Andean Cock-of-the-rock, three minutes from the Jardín's square (there are those who complain about paying five thousand pesos). It is an initiative of the biologist Orlando Marulanda. The Sociedad Colombiana de Orquideología acquired 200 hectares to the southwest, in limits with Riosucio, and is on the verge of road.

There is still work done by the mayors and farmers associations to discourage the destruction of the ecosystem with paddocks, crops and inappropriate constructions.

(Thanks to Elver Ledesma, forestry technologist, at Reserva Mesenia-Paramillo.)

El Colombiano, 13 January