Colombia’s Heartland

In more recent times, the region’s history has been entangled in Colombia’s complicated politics. In the 1980s and 1990s, many ranches were extorted or taken over by guerrillas and paramilitaries, and parts of the region served as a cocaine-processing center, a key link between the heart of coca production, just to the south, and markets far to the north.

But as the Llanos has emerged from its turbulent history, it has gained attention for an entirely different set of connections. One area in particular, known as the Serranía de Manacacías, caught the attention of scientists. The hilly, rolling landscape there is home to 13 separate ecosystems, many of which were not previously represented in Colombia’s national park system. Eight are associated with the savanna. But nestled between the folds of the land, along streams and wetlands, are five riparian forest, or “bosque,” ecosystems—emerald-green ribbons that provide relief and refuge amid the broader dry savanna landscape.

Roughly a decade ago, scientists recognized the Serranía de Manacacías’ importance not just as a unique ecosystem with extremely high biodiversity, but also as an ecological bridge—both within Colombia and to points beyond.

“Manacacías is unique because it has nearly 460 bird species. That’s one-third of the avian biodiversity of the U.S., in just 168,000 acres,” says Thomas Walschburger, The Nature Conservancy’s senior science advisor in Colombia. Manacacías serves as a link between two major river basins, the Orinoco and the Amazon, as well as the Andes. “It’s a very important biodiversity corridor, and it’s important for a lot of migratory birds from the U.S. There may be 50 species of boreal migrants,” including buff-breasted sandpipers, Mississippi kites, bobolinks and a variety of warblers.

Yet even as scientists’ awareness of the ecological importance of the Serranía de Manacacías was growing, so were threats to the area. In recent years, the region has seen a burst of oil-palm cultivation, plantation forestry, and oil and gas exploration.

“A lot of people think the Llanos will be the new agro-industrial frontier of the world,” says Walschburger. “Because in our [traditional] mentality, grasslands have no value. If you say savannas, that’s wasteland.”

But last November, after a decade of discussion and an ongoing series of ranch buyouts, the Colombian government declared this the newest area within Colombia’s national parks system.

Decisions to sell were partially propelled by broader changes happening on the Llanos. During the 1980s and ’90s, “there was a lot of violence in the Llanos,” says Walschburger. “A lot of landowners fled, so the new generation was raised in the urban areas, and they administered their ranches from the cities.”

Because of that, he says, “the new generations don’t have as strong a relation to the land. We have lost all these arraigamientos a la tierra—those connections to the land.”

At approximately 168,000 acres, the new park is about one-fifth the size of Yosemite National Park. “It’s small for a park, but everything you can see condensed in one place is phenomenal,” says Javier Rodríguez, a local rancher. “It’s a landscape that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world, with a very high degree of biodiversity.”

The Nature Conservancy and its partners in the area are ramping up existing efforts to support ranchers in land management practices that help their operations become more profitable while also protecting—or restoring—grasslands and other wildlands on their properties. Some of the possibilities include regenerative practices to make ranching more profitable, ecotourism and possibly carbon markets to add economic value to grasslands and forested lands.

The goal is to keep the region’s Llaneros on their ranches and create a border of healthy lands surrounding the national park.

“Basically, the challenge is to keep ranching economically competitive so it isn’t displaced by other uses of the land” such as oil palm plantations and tree farms, says Rodríguez, who continues to ranch in the area outside the park. “Individualism,” he adds with a laugh, “is a big thing here, and working together isn’t always so easy. Going forward, we have a lot to learn.”