The Rosario and San Bernardo Corals National Natural Park ( es, Parque Nacional Natural Corales del Rosario y San Bernardo) is a natural park located in the
Sucre
Sucre () is the Capital city, capital of Bolivia, the capital of the Chuquisaca Department and the List of cities in Bolivia, 6th most populated city in Bolivia. Located in the south-central part of the country, Sucre lies at an elevation of . T ...
Caribbean Region of Colombia
The Caribbean region of Colombia or Caribbean coast region is in the north of Colombia and is mainly composed of 8 departments located contiguous to the Caribbean.Cartagena. It was the most visited national park in Colombia in 2009, with 318,473 visitors.
Most of the park is underwater and it mainly protects marine ecosystems, including
coral reef
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups.
Co ...
s living on depths ranging from one to 30 meters.
General
It is Colombia's only underwater park, and one of three
national park
A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...
s in the Colombian Caribbean with coral reefs on its territories, the other two being
Tayrona
Tairona (or Tayrona) was a Pre-Columbian culture of Colombia, which consisted in a group of chiefdoms in the region of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in present-day Cesar, Magdalena and La Guajira Departments of Colombia, South America, which ...
and Old Providence McBean Lagoon.
It was established in 1977 to protect the coral reef on one of the islands in the
Islas del Rosario
The Rosario Islands (Islas del Rosario), also referred to as Corales Islas del Rosario (Coral Islands of Rosario), is an archipelago located off the coast of Colombia, approximately from Cartagena. It is one of the 46 Natural National Parks ...
archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...
, originally extending . In 1988, an area of was incorporated, and finally in 1996 the park was expanded to the present area, , including
Archipelago of San Bernardo
The Archipelago of San Bernardo ( es, Archipiélago de San Bernardo, Islas de San Bernardo) is a set of nine coastal coral islands and one artificial island (ten in total) belonging to and governed by Colombia, located in the Gulf of Morrosquillo ...
.
The park is molded by the Caribbean and Panama currents, as well as freshwater from the
Canal del Dique
The Canal del Dique ( Levee Channel) is a 118 km artificial canal connecting Cartagena Bay (at the corregimiento of Pasacaballos) to the Magdalena River in the Bolívar Department in northern Colombia. The canal is a bifurcation or artific ...
. Sediments brought from
Magdalena River
The Magdalena River ( es, Río Magdalena, ; less commonly ) is the main river of Colombia, flowing northward about through the western half of the country. It takes its name from the biblical figure Mary Magdalene. It is navigable through much of ...
by the channel is having a negative effect of the park, as it deteriorates the reef. There are no bodies of freshwater in the park, but there is
brackish water
Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estua ...
in some of the
lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') a ...
s on the islands. Average yearly temperature is 27–30 °C.
Flora and fauna
Most of the wildlife is marine. The park is home to 170 species of fish, 52 corals, 25 sponges, hundreds of
mollusc
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...
s and
crustacean
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...
s. The flora is characterized by
mangrove
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...
s and
seagrass
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the orde ...