About Tropicario Bogotá Botanic Garden
Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, is in the country’s center at 2,600 meters above sea level. The city’s land is known as “The Bogotá Savanna,” a plateau part of the Andes’ eastern mountain range. The town is bounded to the east by a mountain range known as the Eastern Hills and to the west by the Bogotá River. This area was formerly a vast lake that connected the mountain and the river about 20,000 years ago. Today, only a few vestiges of this former lake remain; the city drained most wetlands for urban expansion, reducing 50,000 hectares at the turn of the twentieth century to 727, leaving only 1.45% of the original area. This decline is primarily the result of widespread misunderstanding about the function of wetlands in ecosystems. © Mauricio Carvajal
The country’s environmental bounty is offset by high levels of deforestation and raw material exploitation; illegal mining, widespread cattle ranching, and indiscriminate logging are some of the most severe issues. Colombia has been named one of the eight nations responsible for half of the planet’s degradation due to high rates of endangered species. The Tropicario Bogotá Botanic Garden develops the initiative “Nodos de Diversidad” or “Nodes of Diversity” as a strategy for ecosystem conservation and protection, an ambitious project that seeks to carry out a new botanical expedition throughout different areas of t...