Page 18 - Demo

18THE AMAZON RAINFOREST is huge, covering an area of 6.7 million sq km, that is about twice the size of India (28 x the size of the UK). It reaches out to touch 8 countries. It is not solely a huge parcel of monotonous jungle, it is a largely unexplored and enigmatic universe where mysterious worlds exist within worlds. Chiribiquete lies in one of the most remote and inaccessible areas of the Colombian Amazon. Covering about 43,000 km2(roughly the size of the Netherlands) the park is the largest protected natural area in Colombia and the largest tropical rainforest national park in the world. Secluded and secretive, most of Chiribiquete is an unchartered and pristine wilderness; It is a place that shelters %u201cuncontacted%u201d tribes and cloaks the remnants of ancient cultures, long lost in the mists of time. Chiribiquete%u2019s orphic and dramatic landscape is pitted with jungle filled craters and scattered with striking tepuis (tabletop mountains) that abruptly arise from the forest. Elevations in the park range from about 200 to 1,000 m above sea level. The park%u2019s mountain ridges are an important remnant of the Guiana Shield; one of the world%u2019s oldest rock formations (1.7 billion years old). Chiribiquete is located at its western-most edge; a unique confluence point of four biogeographical provinces: The Guyana shield, the Amazon, the Andes and the Orinoco. The different biomes contain a variety of environments, including flooded savannas and forests, tropical savanna, shrublands and tropical moist forests. The result of this unique tectonic crashzone has been an explosion of evolution resulting in a staggering level of biodiversity Each time biologists have visited the park, they have discovered multiple species new to science. The most significant recent discovery was the identification of a new species of primate in 2010...CHIRBIQUETESouth America with theAmazon Basin in green.The countries of the Amazon Basin.Chiribiquete National Park.ColombiaTHE LOST WORLD OF CHIRIBIQUETE