Gran Canaima

[Idara Viengxay]

CanaimaNational Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Canaima) is a 30,000 km2 (12,000 sq mi) park in south-eastern Venezuela that roughly occupies the same area as the Gran Sabana region. It is located in Bolvar State, reaching the borders with Brazil and Guyana. The park was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Canaima National Park was established on 12 June 1962.As early as 1990, the countries that participate in the Amazonian Cooperation Treaty had recommended expanding the Canaima National Park southward to connect it with Monte Roraima National Park in Brazil, with coordinated management of tourism, research and conservation.[1]

In 1994, the Canaima National Park was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The International Union for Conservation of Nature performed a conservation assessment in 2017, which listed Canaima National Park as an area of significant concern, citing ineffective protection and management.

Canaima National Park is the second largest park in Venezuela, after Parima-Tapirapec, and sixth biggest national park in the world. It is roughly the same size as Belgium or Maryland. The park protects part of the Guayanan Highlands moist forests ecoregion.[2]

About 65% of the park is occupied by plateaus of rock called tepuis, which are a kind of table-top mountain millions of years old, with vertical walls and almost flat tops. These constitute a unique biological environment and are also of great geological interest. Their sheer cliffs and waterfalls including Angel Falls, which is the highest waterfall in the world, at 979 metres (3,212 ft).

The most famous tepuis in the park are Mount Roraima, the tallest and easiest to climb, and Auyantepui, the site of Angel Falls. The tepuis are sandstone and date back to a time when South America and Africa were part of a super-continent.

The park is home to indigenous Pemon Indians, part of the Carib linguistic group. The Pemon have an intimate relationship with the tepuis, and believe they are the home of the 'Mawari' spirits. The park is relatively remote, with only a few roads connecting towns. Most transport within the park is done by light plane from the airstrips built by various Capuchin missions, or by foot and canoe.

The park includes the entire watershed of the right bank of the Caron River and two of the highest waterfalls in the world, the Angel Falls and the Kukenn, as well as plenty of waterfalls of lower altitude.

The only land form are the tepuis, that are plateaus which are unique features, among which are its vertical and nearly flat tops, although there are several tepuies that do not meet these rules. Geologically are remnants of a sedimentary cover composed of very ancient sandstone that is superimposed on a base of igneous rocks (mainly granite) that is even older (nearly 3 billion years). On its summit is home to a substantial amount of specific endemic species, both plant and animal. Some endemic plant species are categorized as "carnivorous", which are thus the food supply (mainly insects) that are so scarce in the mountains. These have a geological formations ranging between 1.5 and 2 billion years, which makes them one of the oldest formations in the world. The best known tepuies are: the Auyantepuy (where it follows the Angel Falls), the Roraima, the Kukenan and the Chimant among many others.[4][5]

Canaima National Park is spread in south-eastern Venezuela along the border between Guyana and Brazil. The best-known feature of Canaima National Park is its characteristic flat-topped mountain formations known as 'tepuis' which cover roughly 65% of the park. The tepuis constitute a unique biogeological entity and are of great geological interest.

The Park is on the Gran Sabana plateau of southeasternmost Venezuela reaching to the border with Brazil and paralleling the Guyanan border to north of the Sierra da Lema and the Rio Carrao; on the west and south it is bounded by the River Caroni. It is about 200 km south of the city of Ciudad Guyana between 441' to 629'N and 6040' to 62 59'W. The Pan American Highway to Brazil runs down its eastern side.

Government, in Bolvar State. The traditional inhabitants, the Pemn, claim rights to several lands and properties (Castillo, 2005). Administered by the National Parks Institute (INPARQUES) of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

The Guyanan highland moist forests are of dense evergreen submontane and montane forest, with some scrub savannas, mostly unexplored. The tall evergreen forests 30-40m high with dense crowns and some emergent trees are of the genera Calophyllum, Anacardium, Manilkara, Protium, Inga, Parkia, Copaifera, Erythrina, and Dipteryx. On the plains, abundant trees include Micropholis melinoniana, Dacroydes sp., Euterpe precatoria, and Quassia cedron. In the hills, there are fewer emergents and forests of Newtonia suaveolens, Couratari guanensis, Alexa sp.,Euterpe precatoria and Micrandra minor. The annually flooded riverine forests are similar in both physiognomy and composition to the flooded forests of Amazonia with Amazonian families of Lauraceae, Magnoliaceae, Elaeocarpaceae, Rubiaceae and Myrtaceae (Daly & Mitchell, 2000).

A tepui mountain has four distinct vegetation zones: base, talus slope, cliff foot and mountain summit. The base rises out of highland savanna or evergreen rainforest below 500m in an uninterrupted mat of rainforest, with a canopy between 25 and 45m tall, dominated either by lowland Amazonian or Guayanan elements. Above 500m the talus slopes are covered by humid montane forests with trees up to 60m high giving way to montane genera such as Clusia, Monorobea, Miconia, Graffenrieda, Magnolia, Myrcia, Drimys, and Viburnum. Typically tropical highland or temperate Ericaceae become common in these cloud forests along with ferns. In the cooler, humid forests of the upper talus slopes, species of Andean ancestry have evolved. At the foot of the escarpment cliffs, most plants are hardy species that have adapted to the bare sandstone. Members of the Bromeliaceae pineapple family are particularly successful here, especially in the genera Cottendorfia, Navia, and Brocchinia.

The pantepui ecoregion is characterized by diversity with floristic associations varying from mountain to mountain. There is an extraordinary degree of species richness on these isolated mountaintops, and they have some of the highest plant endemism in northern South America (eg, 20 species of the endemic bamboo Myriocladus). Of the 2,322 species of vascular plants in 630 genera in the floristic province, 766 (33%) are endemic to the province, and 65 are restricted to the Guayana Shield (Sears, 2001b). On the summits, there are five vegetation types: 1) forests of mainly dwarfed trees, on stream sides, depressions and gullies; 2) forest epiphytes; 3) rock crevices, bluffs and ledges; 4) wet or dry open savanna; and 5) rock outcrops and open sand or rock. The vegetation, isolated for millennia on infertile soils, is characterized by endemism and carnivory, eg: Heliamphora spp.,Drosera roraima and Utricularia humboldtii. 18 of these endemic taxa have been identified on the tepuis Summit endemics occur on most or all mountains, others are highly localized to a single summit, and on Auyntepui for example, 900 species of higher plants have been recorded many endemic to that massif. And the cloud forest on the low tepui of Sierra de Lema is one of the most richly endemic areas in Venezuela. Summit forests are low (8-15m) and species-poor; their leaves are almost entirely coriaceous. Some low forest associations are Bonnetia neblinae and Neotatea neblinae; Podocarpus roraimae, Schefflera umbellata, Daphnopsis steyermarkii, Psychotria jauaensis, Befaria sprucei, and Weinmannia velutina; and the endemic-dominated association on the Cerro Yapacana of Bonnetia tristyla, Tepuianthus yapacanensis, Symplocos yapacanensis, and Gongylolepis yapacana. Tree ferns and palms such as Geonoma appuniana and Euterpe caatinga grow well and Bromeliaceae and Eriocaulaceae grow in the understorey (Castillo, 2005; Sears, 2001b).

The ecoregion as a whole has four distinct phytogeographic districts each grouped into mountain blocks, and each with its own characteristic and endemic taxa. The eastern district is delimited by the distribution of the endemic treelet Bonnetia roraimae; some genera endemic to this district include Quelchia, a shrubby member of the sunflower family, Connellia, in the Bromeliaceae, and Tepuia in the Ericaceae. The southern district, along the eastern Venezuela-Brazil border, has extensive shrublands, meadows, and frequent low forests also the highest number of flowering plants within one endemic family, the Saccifoliaceae. and twelve endemic genera. The western district is the most extensive, hosting the characteristic red-flowered Kunhardtia rhodantha, shrubby melastomes of the genera Graffenrieda and Meriania, and a number of endemic Phyllanthus species. The northern, Jaua-Duida, district comprises widespread summits sharing genera such as Tyleria, Neotatea and Tepuianthus, as well as the dominant meadow species Stegolepis grandis. (Sears, 2001b).

495 birds have been recorded in the Gran Sabana ecoregion where the endemism is high (Castillo, 2005). They include the harpy eagle Harpia harpyja, the largest raptor in South America, the savanna hawk Buteogallus meridionalis, the jabiru Jabiru mycteria, a large water bird; and the great tinamou, Tinamus major a large land bird, also the tepui tinamou Crypturellus ptaritepui. Other birds sometimes seen here include the black-faced hawk Leucopternis melanops, red-shouldered macaw Diopsittaca nobilis, painted parakeet Pyrrhura picta and savannah seedeaters Sporophila spp. Northern migratory species winter in the savanna, such as spotted sandpiper Actitis macularia, barn swallow Hirundo rustica and blackpoll warbler Dendroica striata. The moist forests also have great diversity, including white-cheeked pintail Anas bahamensis, aplomado falcon Falco femoralis, brown-throated parakeet Aratinga pertinax, pavonine cuckoo Dromococcyx pavoninus, vermiculated screech owl Megascops guatemalae, burrowing owl Athene cunicularia, five species of emeralds and hummingbirds, chestnut-tipped toucanet Aulacorhynchus derbianus, smoke-colored pewee Contopus fumigatus, orange-crowned oriole Icterus auricapillus, gray seedeater Sporophila intermedia, two-banded warbler Basileuterus bivittatus and black-backed water-tyrant Fluvicola albiventer (Sears 2001a) . Most of the 36 endemic birds of the Guyanan Highlands are totally restricted to the vicinity of the tepuis, mainly to the humid forest on the piedmont slopes above 600 m (Huber 1997). Some examples are the tepui swift Streptoprocne phelpsi in the montane evergreen forest, cliffs, rocky canyon, grasslands and savannas, the tepui goldenthroat Polytmus milleri in the forest edge, low seasonally wet grassland and scrub, and the tepui wren Troglodites rufulus on montane evergreen forest edge, elfin forest, scrub and savanna (Stattersfield et al., 1998; Bonaccorso, 2001). In the west the bird population is as varied and numerous and includes the bell bird Procnias alba, screaming piha Lipaugus vocifernas, toucans Ramphastos spp., and a multitude of hummingbirds (Castillo, 2005).

3a8082e126