Protected Lands of South America, From the Caribbean Coast to Patagonia

Colombia opens the trail. Tayrona, established in 1964 near Santa Marta, protects about 150 square kilometers of Caribbean coast, roughly 30 of them sea, and shelters the cotton-top tamarin, which is found nowhere else in the world.

In southeastern Venezuela, Canaima covers a huge stretch of the Gran Sabana. Its flat-topped tepui mountains include Auyantepui, the source of Angel Falls, the tallest uninterrupted waterfall in the world.

Ecuador made this its first national park in 1959, protecting ninety-seven percent of the islands' land, though active operation began only in 1968. Its tortoises, marine iguanas and finches helped inspire Darwin's theory of natural selection.

Peru's Manu, established in 1973, runs from high Andean grassland through cloud forest to lowland Amazon rainforest. It also shelters indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation in its most remote zones.

Across the border in Bolivia, Madidi was created in 1995 and drops from Andean peaks to rainforest along the Tuichi River. In 2018 the Wildlife Conservation Society named it the world's most biologically diverse national park.

Also in Bolivia, this park marks the meeting of Amazon rainforest and cerrado, including the Huanchaca Plateau. It was renamed in 1988 for the biologist Noel Kempff Mercado, and UNESCO inscribed it in 2000.

In Piaui, Brazil, the park is protected mainly for people rather than wildlife. Its rock shelters and paintings form the largest and oldest known concentration of prehistoric sites in the Americas, a World Heritage Site since 1991.

Out in the Atlantic, about 220 miles off Pernambuco, this park covers most of an archipelago of 21 volcanic islands and islets. Only the main island is inhabited, and UNESCO listed the islands in 2001 as a feeding ground for tuna, sharks and sea turtles.

Created by federal decree in 1939, this Brazilian park guards the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls and the Atlantic Forest around them. Paired with Argentina's park across the river, it shelters jaguar, tapir and harpy eagle.

In La Rioja, Argentina, the Talampaya River has cut a canyon through red sandstone that exposes Triassic rock. Fossils there help document the origins of the dinosaurs, and UNESCO inscribed the park in 2000 together with Ischigualasto.

The trail ends in Patagonia at Argentina's oldest national park, first protected in 1922. It covers about 7,050 square kilometers around Nahuel Huapi Lake, from snowy Andean heights to Patagonian desert and Valdivian rainforest, and borders Chile.