Canaima National Park
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Canaima National Park in Venezuela, South America
Introduction
Canaima national park is located in southeast Venezuela, in Bolivar state, with an area of 30,000 km extending to reach the borders with Brazil and Guyana. The park encloses the ancestral territory of the Pemon indigenous people. It is the second-largest part of Venezuela and the sixth biggest national park in the world. It was established in 1962 and was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1994 (Rodríguez, 2014). It is recognized as the tepius due to the presence of plateaus of rock, which form a tabletop mountain that is millions of years old with Mount Roraima as the most famous tepius in the park. It is, therefore, a natural reserve that has abrupt relief from tepius and thus is unique and special in the world.
Canaima National Park is significant due to its major role in the protection of the Guayanan Highland moist forests ecosystems, tourism, and settlements. Attractive features include cliffs, rapids, Indian villages and communities, beaches, lagoons, rivers, and waterfalls. The park has the highest waterfall in the world; the Angels falls (Dagert, 2001). However, the best-known feature in the park is the top flat-topped mountain formations known as tepius, which cover a wide range of the park. The park has luxurious camps that accommodate tourists from all corners of the world. The park is remotely connected to few roads. It, however, can be accessed through airstrips, by foot or canoe (Rodríguez, 2014). The presence of tepuis with unique with biological and geological values extraordinary scenery has triggered great geological interest and study of the park.
Park Management
The National Park System manages Canaima National Park. The management of the park is placed under INPARQUES, which is the National Parks Institute and operates as the government agency with legal responsibility for national park management. The management of the park was established in Canaima National park for environmental and economic criteria. The management also gives importance to the protection of the Pemon people and their culture to reduce conflicts. The management is entrusted to enhance preservation of the structure of the ecosystems, conservation of the genetic resources, maintenance of natural levels of plants and animal biodiversity and preservation of the quality of the landscape (Machlis & Tichnell, 2019. The park is subdivided into two sectors to enhance management. The sectors are the eastern and the western areas, which can be approximated to be 1.5 million hectares each in size.
The eastern sector s managed through the enhanced accessibility, which came to place with the paving of the international highway to Brazil. The western sector is more remote and accessible only through air or river. The western side, however, contains the significant tourists attractions, such as the world’s biggest waterfall, the Angel waterfall. Management is governed by legal instruments, which include the 1989 Partial Regulation of the Constitutional Law for Territorial Planning (Rodríguez, 2014). The law was to aid in Administration and Management of National Parks and Nature Monuments and is commonly referred to as Decree 276). The act defines in detail the administrative structure in the management of the park, general regulations in the national park, prohibited activities in the park, and measures used i=by the administration to ensure compliance with the set park laws. Other legal instruments include the 1991 Zoning Plan of the Eastern Sector of CNP (Decree 1640) (Sharpe & Rodríguez, 1997).
Human-Resources
The two sectors of the Canaima are each operated separately. Each sector has two technicians who are referred to as the sector director and sector assistant. Each sector also has five guards who are responsible for administration and management functions. The park, therefore, lacks sufficient staff and has poor management infrastructure as the team of five is expected to handle many functions and manage over 1.2 million hectares of the park (Kingsbury, 2003). The park guards are the main actors in the administration and management of the park. They are tasked with patrol and control of the most visited sites of the park. In the eastern sector, the most visited areas that require control and patrol are Paraitepui de Roraima, Jaspe Creek, which has two park guards, Iboribó and Pacheco Creek.
Operations in the Park
The main tasks to perform to run the park include:
Regulation of Tourism
Canaima Park has various access points making it accessible to visitors, park inhabitants, and nearby residents. The eastern sector is mainly affected as people use the Troncal 10 highway, park guards’ work in the regulation of tourism in ensuring the signing of recreational site entry and collection and management of entrance fees (Kingsbury, 2003). They are also engaged in the control of waste materials in the park, which increases significantly in the tourism seasons.
Infrastructure Management and Control
Visitors are known to cause problems by using authorized roads and drives within the park. People drive off-road using their 4×4 vehicles to avoid main roads, which are full of mud to arrive at their destination quickly. Formation of new tracks disrupts the ecosystem, and thus park guard must enhance maintenance of the established infrastructure.
Conflict Management with Indigenous Communities
The government approval of the constitution saw the need for demarcation of land in the Canaima national park and allocation to the indigenous community. However, the establishment of protected areas and their management frequently ignite conflicts between the management and the indigenous community, with the guards involved in ensuring fairness and maintenance of peace within the region.
Control and Management Of Wild Fires
Wildfires are a common occurrence in the national park, and Canaima national park is no exemption. Occurrences of fires, especially in the dry season, which are mainly human-caused calls for constant control and regulation of the Canaima environment (Machlis & Tichnell, 2019). Park guards must also be on the lookout for persons who burn to prepare the land for cultivation, communication, clearance to create trails and roads as well as to scare wild animals.
Programming
Each day in the park is assigned various activities. Administrators through the park guards patrol and control activities in the recreational sites (Dagert, 2001). Park inhabitants engage in their daily routines, such as agricultural activities of planting, weeding, and clearing, fishing, hunting, and collection of various types of foods found in the park. The increased population continues to strain the management through changes in the settlement patterns have increased pressure on a variety of natural resources over the years. Established new patterns within the ecosystem require constant movement of the guards to ensure all parts of the park are maintained according to the laws established in the constitution.
Daily routines also include admission of tourism within the recreation sites, entrance fee collection, signing of registries, and management of waste materials (Sharpe & Rodríguez, 1997). The main tourist events occur in August, December, and the Saint week, also referred to as Easter. Determination of the total number of visitors who turn up for events has been challenged by the lack of recreational site registries and lack of entrance fees. However, sits such as the Angels fall, Jaspe Creek, lagoons, Paraitepui de Roraima, and the Luepa Visitor’s Center have large flows of tourists during holidays and celebration times such as the Saint week.
Funding
Canaima National has a wide range of scenery, including savannahs, forests, tepuys, rivers, and waterfalls. The anger waterfall acts as a guardian for hydroelectric production, which has seen a production of over 9 million kilowatts. Electricity production led to an increase in the size of the part to safeguard the investment of power development to increase production to 20 million kilowatts (Rodríguez, 2014). The park, however, faces financial difficulties due to insufficient management and allocation of resources. The park is funded by the government to enhance operations in the implementation of an operational management plan, settling of land claims, removal of permanent human settlements, complete demarcation of the protected areas as well as the establishment of facilities and buildings.
The park is, therefore, not self-sufficient as it relies on the national park system governmental funding for personnel and equipment. However, tourism plays a significant role in funding the operations of the park, where tourist activities and mining also add to the total revenue generated by the park. The lack of sufficient funding for operation and management is fueled by inadequate infrastructure, poor management, and a lack of skilled human resources. The national park is also strained by its engagement in unsustainable mining activities, illegal logging, extensive damage from tourism activities as the park lack facilities to accommodate tourists and materials that can be used in the education of tourists on appropriate behavior(Sharpe & Rodríguez, 1997). For example, there is a great need for tourism education in Canaima National park on off-road driving, which leads to the destruction of the ecology, which has become a common problem in the park.
Conclusion
Canaima national park, under the management of the National Park institute, has established policies on management and maintenance of the park. The park is, however, threatened by human engagement through constructions and the presence of the indigenous communities. There is, therefore, a need for a control program that will reduce the degree of vegetation damage, reduction of wildfire through environmental education and other management policies that will help the park, especially in the management of the protected area.
References
Dagert, D. A., M. (2001). The Political Ecology of Nature-based Tourism in Canaima National Park, Venezuela, and the Changing Resource Relation of the Pemon-Kamaracoto (Vol. 1). Michigan State University. Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism Resources.
Kingsbury, N. D. (2003). Same forest, different countries: cultural dimensions of protected area management in southeastern Venezuela and western Guyana. Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 17(1-2), 171-188.
Machlis, G. E., & Tichnell, D. L. (2019). The state of the world’s parks: An international assessment for resource management, policy, and research. Routledge.
Rodríguez, I. (2014). Canaima National Park and World Heritage Site: Spirit of Evil?. World Heritage Sites and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, 489.
Sharpe, C. J., & Rodríguez, I. (1997, January). Discovering the Lost World: Canaima National Park and World Heritage Site, Venezuela. The George Wright Forum (pp. 15-23). The George Wright Society.