Before visiting the park, the family has revised Present Perfect.
Parque Nacional de Tierra del Fuego is a national park on the Argentine part of the island of Tierra del Fuego, within Tierra del Fuego Province in the ecoregion of Patagonic Forest and Altos Andes, a part of the subantarctic forest. Established on 15 October 1960 under the Law 15.554 and expanded in 1966, it was the first shoreline national park to be established in Argentina.
The park has dramatic scenery, with waterfalls, forests, mountains and glaciers. Its 630 km2 include parts of the Fagnano and Roca lakes. The Senda Costera, connecting Ensenada Bay to Lapataia Bay on Lago Roca, is a popular hiking trail within the park. Forests of Antarctic beech, lenga beech and coihue in the lower elevations of the park are home to many animal species.
There are 20 species of terrestrial mammals, including the guanaco, Andean fox, North American beaver, European rabbit and muskrat. Among the 90 species of birds are the kelp goose, torrent duck, austral parakeet, Andean condor, blackish oystercatcher, and Magellanic oystercatcher.
The southernmost national park in Argentina, it is listed as an IUCN category II park. The park stretches 60 km north from the Beagle Channel along the Chilean border. Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego Province, is 11 km from the park.
More information: Already, Just, Yet
The park can be reached by car or by train. The southern terminus of the Pan-American Highway is located within the park, as is the El Parque station of the End of the World Train.
The park forms the southern portion of the subantarctic forest and is known for its biological richness.
The subantarctic forest vegetation is dominated by tree species of coihue, nires and lenga (a tree or shrub native to the Andes and also known as lenga beech) apart from a profusion of massbed. The flora that characterizes the Andino-Patagonico forests, the lenga, is well distributed over the mountain slopes above sea level to a height of 600 m. Above 600 m elevation, the flora consists of altoandina with small little bushes, plants en cojin and grasses.
IUCN has reported forests of southern beech species of Nothofagus pumilio, N. antarctica and N. betuloides. Other species include Berberis buxifolia, Embothrium coccineum, winter's bark Drimys winteri, and Crowberry, Empetrum rubrum and mosses.
Coihue de Magallanes is found in the
wettest parts of the Beagle channel coast of the park. Lenga is found
in the Pipo River Valley and some parts of southern mountain slopes and
may be thickly set and reach great heights.
Chinese lantern, hemiparasite and Pande Indian or Llao Llao, which are fungus parasites, are found over the branches of the trees.
Cinnamon is also reported in many small forest areas of the park. Peat bogs extensively found in the park. These are made up of sphagnum moss and aquatic grasses in damp valleys where low temperatures and slow moving acidic waters prevent decomposition.
The flower varieties found are calafate, chaura and michay, which are orange coloured. Flag tree, strawberry devil and little ferns, yellow orchids and luzuriagas are seen in the understory of forest cover. Black bush, caulking, grill and Embothrium cocci with red tubular flowers are typically seen in the Beagle Channel coast and the western part of Lapataia Bay. Also found is the chocolate scented Nassauvia.
Settlers from Europe and North America introduced many species of animals into the area, such as the European rabbit, North American beaver, muskrat and gray fox, which rapidly proliferated and caused significant damage to the environment.
Avifauna includes three types of cauquenes (sheldgeese) namely, cauquen comun (upland goose or Magellan goose), cauquen real (ashy-headed goose) and caranca (kelp goose), found in open places and beaches.
Other birds include Patagonian woodpeckers, notably the spectacular Magellanic woodpecker, maca común, common maca, heron, pato creston (crested duck), duck overo, corn duck, eagle, southern carancho, chimango. Condors are seen flying on the peaks and valleys of Tierra del Fuego. It is also home the austral parakeet, Enicognathus ferrugineus, a species of parrot.
Aquafauna consists of scallop, moon snail, spiral tooth, few crustaceans like crabs and fishes such as sardines, Falkland sprat, Fueguina, merluza and Robalo de cola, jellyfish concentrations, steamer ducks and cormorants. Guanaco Lama guanicoe and South American sea lions are reported in the park.
Sea birds reported include petrels and albatrosses. Other notable fauna reported are several species of penguins, the South Andean deer or Huemul Hippocamelus bisulcus, and the southern river otter Lutra provocax.
The park experiences a temperate climate with frequent rain, fog and strong winds. Westerly winds over the sea maintain a uniform climate in the park. The average annual rainfall is 700 mm. Peak rainfall, snowfall at higher elevations, occurs from March through May; there is no dry season. Average temperatures are about 0 °C in winter and 10 °C in the summer.
More information: Turismo Ushuaia
The first Europeans who came to explore the southern tip of South America saw the campfires of the native inhabitants of the area, the Yaghan people, also called Yámana. The Spanish explorers hence named the area Tierra del Fuego, meaning land of fire in Spanish.
Humans inhabited Tierra del Fuego as far back as 10,000 years ago. The Yaghan people, living in the harsh environment, survived on the natural resources of the sea.
They lived on its beaches and made voyages into the sea in canoes made of lenga beech, hunted sea lions and collected shellfish. They lived in huts made of tree branches and trunks and clothed themselves with leather made from sea lion pelts. They smeared their body with the fat and grease of these animals to waterproof their skins.
The southern group of the Selk’nam, the Yaghan people (also known as Yámana), occupied what is now Ushuaia, living in continual conflict with the northern inhabitants of the island.
Wasti H. Stirling, an Anglican missionary, settled here in 1870 and started to convert Yaghan tribes, the natives, the original residents of the Beagle Channel.
During the 1880s, many gold prospectors came to Ushuaia, following rumors of large gold fields, which proved to be false.
Trouble for the Yaghan people began in 1880, when European missionaries entered the area.
European settlers brought diseases such as measles, causing a rapid and nearly complete extinction of the Yaghan people.
The Yaghan tribe was reduced in number from about 3,000 people in 1880 to less than 100 by the 1990s. Many of them were killed by European settlers' shoot exercises and deliberate poisoning to exploit the sea lions, the staple of the Yaghan diet. Following the death of 84-year-old Emelinda Acuña (1921-12 October 2005), only one native speaker remains, Cristina Calderón of Villa Ukika on Navarino Island, Chile.
More information: Beagle Project
It's a sanctuary for nature and for humans
who will accept nature on nature's own terms.
Michael Frome
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