🇧🇴 Bolivia · Lowlands, the East and the Amazon
Noel Kempff Mercado National Park is one of the largest, most remote and best-preserved protected areas in Bolivia, declared a Natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO. In the northeast of the department of Santa Cruz, on the border with Brazil, it protects a mosaic of near-pristine ecosystems: Amazon rainforest, savannas, woodlands and, above all, the spectacular sandstone plateaus or 'serranías' that rise abruptly above the plain.
Its greatest emblem is the Caparú (or Huanchaca) plateau, an imposing sandstone formation reaching close to 900–980 meters in altitude that drops onto the plain in vertical walls several hundred meters high, over which great waterfalls plunge — El Encanto (around 80 m), Arcoíris and Ahlfeld — in a landscape that recalls the tepuis of the Gran Sabana. The park holds exceptional biodiversity, with jaguars, tapirs, marsh deer, giant otters and a very rich birdlife.
This guide gathers the essentials of Noel Kempff Mercado National Park: its landscapes and attractions, how complicated it is to reach, how to organize the visit, what expeditions cost and practical tips for getting to one of the last great refuges of untouched nature in South America. It's an expedition destination, not a spur-of-the-moment visit.
The park, created in 1979 and later expanded, is named after the Bolivian naturalist Noel Kempff Mercado, murdered in the area in 1986 (at the Huanchaca camp) while researching the region and stumbling onto a drug-trafficking operation. In 2000 it was declared a Natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO for its exceptional ecological value and the integrity of its ecosystems, which run from Amazon rainforest to savanna and the sandstone plateaus of the Brazilian Precambrian Shield. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The great department of the tropical east: Bolivia's economic engine, land of the cambas, home of the celebrated Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos and their baroque music, with the sacred rock of Samaipata, the forests of Amboró and Noel Kempff and the Bolivian Pantanal.
Read the history of Santa Cruz →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
On September 5, 1986, a Cessna light aircraft was flying over the Huanchaca plateau, in the most remote corner of northeastern Bolivia, when the people on board spotted something that shouldn't have been there: a landing strip in the heart of a forest that was supposed to be uninhabited. They decided to go down and investigate. The moment the wheels touched the ground, armed men came out of the scrub and opened fire. The pilot Juan Cochamanidis, the guide Franklin Parada and the Bolivian naturalist Noel Kempff Mercado were killed; only the Spanish scientist Vicente Castelló managed to escape and hide in the bushes. When the police arrived days later, they found the dismantled remains of the largest cocaine factory discovered in Bolivia up to that point, with paperwork implicating high-ranking officials. That episode, as brutal as it was revealing, is the origin of the name now borne by one of the most extraordinary parks on the planet.
Because beyond that tragic story, what the park protects is a landscape from another geological age: the great sandstone plateaus, especially Caparú or Huanchaca, which rise abruptly above the plain of northeastern Santa Cruz. These formations, with vertical walls hundreds of meters high, are remnants of ancient geological platforms eroded over millions of years, related to the tepuis of the Guiana Shield that dominate Venezuela's Gran Sabana.
Great waterfalls plunge from the edges of these plateaus —such as El Encanto and Arcoíris—, fed by the rains and the rivers that cross the tablelands. The contrast between the rock summits, the falling water and the forest around them creates scenes of overwhelming beauty that, for a long time, remained practically unknown because of how remote the region is.
This intact nature and its geological and biological singularity are the heart of the park's value. The plateaus work as ecological islands, with particular conditions that favor the presence of adapted species, and they give the area as a whole a diversity of environments —from the top of the plateau to the foothill forest— that few places in the world keep in such good condition.
The park is named after the Bolivian naturalist Noel Kempff Mercado, one of the most important figures in the history of natural science and conservation in Bolivia. Born in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, he trained as a biologist and devoted much of his life to travelling, cataloguing and studying the plants and animals of eastern Bolivia, at a time when much of that region remained practically unexplored scientifically. His patient, meticulous fieldwork contributed decisively to knowledge of ecosystems that until then barely figured in the international scientific literature.
Kempff Mercado was no desk-bound researcher: his expeditions took him again and again to the most remote areas of Santa Cruz, the Huanchaca plateau included, whose biological richness he documented with dedication. That same passion for seeing the country's most far-flung corners first-hand was, tragically, what led him to the clandestine landing strip where he lost his life in 1986, at the age of 60, on what would be his last expedition.
As a tribute to his work and his sacrifice, the protected area —which had been created years earlier under another name— took his name. Noel Kempff Mercado National Park thus honors the memory of the scientist who did so much to make known and defend the biodiversity of eastern Bolivia, turning his name into a symbol of conservation in the country and a warning about the risks that, even today, face those who work to protect nature in frontier zones.
The park's extraordinary natural value received international recognition in 2000, when UNESCO inscribed it on the Natural World Heritage list. The organization highlighted the exceptional diversity of habitats —from the plateau summits to the Amazon rainforest and the savannas—, the integrity of its practically pristine ecosystems, and its importance as a refuge for rich plant and animal life, many of whose species are threatened elsewhere.
The park, originally created in 1979 and expanded over time to cover a vast area, is one of the largest and best preserved in Bolivia. Its remoteness and difficult access, far from detracting from its value, have largely been the key to its conservation, keeping it safe from the deforestation and human pressure that have affected other regions of the country.
Today Noel Kempff Mercado is one of the last great refuges of intact nature in South America and a heritage site of global importance. Visiting it is a privilege reserved for those willing to undertake a genuine expedition; but above all, its existence is testimony to a commitment to conserving an irreplaceable natural legacy, sealed with the name of the scientist who gave his life for it.
Beyond its geology and the memory of the man it is named for, what makes Noel Kempff Mercado an irreplaceable heritage site is its biodiversity. The convergence of Amazon rainforest, cerrado savanna and plateau woodland in a single territory sustains extraordinary biological wealth: more than 4,000 plant species recorded or estimated, around 600 bird species, more than a hundred mammals and a very diverse herpetofauna and fish fauna. Emblematic species live here side by side — the jaguar, the tapir, the marsh deer, the giant otter, the maned wolf and the giant armadillo — many of them threatened in other regions.
This richness is no accident: the park covers a gradient of environments —from the top of the Caparú plateau to the foothill forest and the flooded savannas— that multiplies the ecological niches. The low human pressure, a result of its isolation, has allowed those ecosystems to function at full capacity, something increasingly rare in South America. That's why the park is also a first-rate scientific laboratory, where species and natural processes are still being studied.
The area also holds a singular human history tied to the name Huanchaca. At the end of the 19th century, a rubber operation ran on that plateau, and much later the place became sadly associated with the 1986 episode in which a clandestine cocaine-processing camp, hidden in the forest, was the scene of the murder of Noel Kempff Mercado and his companions. That event, which shook Bolivia, ended up giving the protected area the scientist's name and reinforced the will to preserve this wild corner of eastern Bolivia forever.