Location: Iglesia Province Map
Area: 160,000 hectares
San Guillermo National Park is located in Iglesia Province in Argentina. San Guillermo National Park covers an area of 160,000 hectares. San Guillermo National Park was established in 1999 as part of San Guillermo Biosphere Reserve. It covers over 160,000 hectares of mountains, puna grasslands, wetlands and canyons. The highest point of San Guillermo National Park reaches an elevation of over 6,000 meters (19,700 feet). San Guillermo National Park is inhabited by Andean mountain cat, cougar, guanaco, vicuna, chinchilla, culpeo fox and many others. Some of the more dangerous creatures here are cougars. Many of these beautiful animals can be seen wearing GPS radio collars. These are used by the local authorities to track this top predator in San Guillermo National Park. Similar device can be seen on vicunas, their common prey. If you are lucky enough you can witness a majestic Andean condor soar in the sky. There are some plans to fit these birds with similar GPS collars.
The national park (166,000 ha) and the provincial
reserve of the same name (811,460 ha), make up the San Guillermo
biosphere reserve, covering a total of 971,460 ha, in the southernmost
area of the Puna (exclusive high-altitude desert of South America),
and comprising three phytogeographic regions: mount and cardonales of
the prepuna, steppes of the Puna and high Andean steppes.
It was
created to recover and protect the habitat of the largest concentration
of camelids in Argentina. With the creation of the San Guillermo
provincial reserve, with a sector that constitutes the national park,
the populations of guanacos and vicuñas continue to recover.
The
area has a southern access, which starts from Rodeo and passes through
several towns, including El Chinguillo and which fords the Blanco River
on several occasions. In the summer season these river crossings are
impossible to carry out due to the great flow of water that runs through
the fords.
The north access is made from the cities of Guandacol
and/or Villa Unión in the province of La Rioja, in both cases you go
through the Laguna Brava provincial reserve (La Rioja), to reach the Las
Majaditas checkpoint, of the reserve. San Guillermo province and travel
through it until crossing the Santa Rosa River, the northern limit of
the national park.
In both accesses, it is circulated by tracks
with high traffic difficulties such as crossings and riverbeds that
require vehicles suitable for all terrain. The Las Majaditas post
operates 24 hours a day with a guard of conservation agents from the
provincial reserve.
Natural resources
Fauna
San Guillermo attracted
great attention as the survival of vicuñas became critical. Here it
lives with the guanaco, another wild camelid, using different habitats
to reduce competition: while the vicuña frequents the plains, the other
prefers the rocky slopes. Until the protection of the area became
effective, both species were persecuted, particularly the vicuña, due to
the great fineness of its hair, with a very soft texture. With the
creation of the San Guillermo provincial reserve, a part of which today
constitutes the national park, the vicuña populations recovered
remarkably: more than 7,000 individuals were recorded, along with some
5,000 guanacos. This is the largest concentration of vicuñas in
Argentina. Both camelids are herbivores adapted to the harshness of
these high deserts. They have pads on their legs that reduce the erosive
effect of trampling and the conformation of their teeth allow them to
cut the grasses without uprooting them, which enables their regrowth.
Other notable components of the San Guillermo fauna are the Andean suri
or rhea, the Andean condor, the puma and the red fox. There are
exclusive or endemic species of the place, as is the case of two
colorful lizards: a chelco and another called piche tail.
Flora
The vegetation is characterized by the predominance of forms prepared to
survive in conditions of extreme aridity and high altitude. The rains
are scarce (30 to 100 mm per year). During some winters there is
significant snowfall and there are very strong winds, with gusts of 100
km/h. Therefore, the most common plants are stunted bushes and on plates
attached to the ground and, scattered among the shelters left by the
loose stones, small herbs with enormous flowers typical of the Andes.
One of the endemic species is a daisy, known by the scientific name of
Andean Huarpea.
environmental risk
In 2013, the NGO Greenpeace
denounced the alleged environmental risk to which the reserve would be
exposed due to the Veladero mining exploitation that takes place 45 km
west of the national park, within the provincial reserve and on the edge
of the multiple use area. of the San Guillermo biosphere reserve, where
industrial mining activities that are recognized and described by UNESCO
are allowed. Professionals, university professors and scientists related
to the activity argue that the NGO's complaints are false and that there
is no environmental risk, the latter being categorically denied by
different scientific reports, which are based on official reports from
Argentine organizations, such as example the Administration of National
Parks and the Secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development of
the Nation.
Biologist Emiliano Donadio from the Ecology Program
and Department of Zoology & Physiology at the University of Wyoming in
the United States, noted:
“...in general, the plan presented by
the IDS avoids the definition of key concepts (sustainable development,
non-renewable resource), presents information that favors the mining
companies, is technically poor, inaccurate and incurs frequent
contradictions. Likewise, the authors systematically avoid literature
that reports the negative impacts of mining, particularly gold mining,
on biodiversity conservation. It can be concluded that the work is an
open defense of mining interests, in accordance with the interests of
the ruling political sector and to the detriment of the natural heritage
of the people of the Argentine nation.”
In November 2009, the
first official inspection of the Pascua Lama project was carried out,
one month after construction began, where the Inspection and Environment
Unit, dependent on the General Water Directorate of Chile, reported that
the company was not taking committed measures to mitigate damage to
glaciers:
“There are a series of breaches of RCA COREMA Atacama
No. 024 dated February 24, 2006 by the head of CIA. MINERA NEVADA LTDA.,
related to the following matters: Possible intervention of the Estrecho
Glacier, or other, product of the generation of particulate material in
the area near the mass of ice, associated with earth moving operations
with high tonnage machinery, in tasks of loading, unloading and transit
of cargo vehicles by the licensee, without implementing measures such as
the wetting of internal roads, the confinement of the places of loading
and unloading of the material, and the confinement of the loading hopper
of the trucks inside the mining site, whose dust in suspension could be
deposited on said Glacier”.
For its part, the Secretary of Environment and
Sustainable Development of the Nation, in a letter sent to the Secretary
of Mining of the Nation, on November 22, 2006 in relation to the
company's IIA, declares:
“As you are aware, the project in
question, as well as others of a mining nature for which there are
currently mining search permits, are partially in territory and in some
of the differentiated areas within the San Guillermo Biosphere Reserve
that It is part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves of the Man
and the Biosphere Program of UNESCO, whose National coordination is the
responsibility of this Secretariat."
Management
By resolution
No. 126/2011 of the National Parks Administration of May 19, 2011, it
was established that the national park would be classified for
administrative purposes in the category protected areas of complexity
III, for which it is headed by a designated intendant, On which 4
departments depend (Administration; Works and Maintenance; National Park
Rangers; Conservation and Public Use) and the Dispatch and Entry, Exit,
and Notifications Division. The Intendancy has its headquarters in the
town of Rodeo.