It was created in 1992 in order to preserve the environment of the higher River Paraná's Delta. Its surface amounts to 2 458 hectares (6 074 acres) and is located in the southeast of Entre Ríos, about 6 kilometres (3.7 miles) south of Diamante city.
It is a part of the Delta and Paraná's Islands region, coincident with the flood valleys in the mid and lower courses of the rivers Paraná and Paraguay. This makes a landscape of low islands that sometimes stay under the water level.
Scenery, Flora, and Fauna
The cluster of islands in this park makes a typical Delta topography. There are uneven parts of the ground that turn into islands when floods break on lower lands, where thick vegetation grows, housing also several lagoons.
Dense straw concentrations cover extensive surfaces, along with water hyacinths (Eichhornia crassipes) called here camalote or aguapey, whose violet flowers are much admired. Irupes (Victoria cruziana) are also impressive floating plants.
The island area has forests of Cockspur Coral Trees, and several other species, as well as large lower surfaces alternating straw and water.
Several willow forests and river alyssums are typical in this region. Here you can find red-eyed thornbirds, which make huge hanging nests above the water, and mammals like capybaras, whose tracks can be followed in the inner paths of the park.
The abundant fauna includes nutria or coypu, and neotropical river otter. Broad-snouted caimans have been detected too.
Among several bird species a few are especially conspicuous: ducks, limpkins, southern screamers, storks, herons, and diverse kingfishers such as the ringed kind, which is quite easily found, becoming thus an emblematic class.
Culture
The aboriginal inhabitants of the area were very effective taking advantage of the resources found here, with a diversity of environmental units, including ravines, lower lands, lagoons, islands, and swamps.
These varied ecosystems bring about a wide range of fish sizes, amphibious mammals such as otters and capybaras, molluscs and the presence of animals from the neighbouring plains, like deers and rheas, whose big eggs may be found on the ground.
People here used to move by canoes and their instruments for their daily living were harpoons made of bones and wood. A few remains of pottery decorated with animals prove the intimate connection between these communities and their environment.
Querandi societies, related to the Tehuelche of the northern Patagonia, occupied these territories and kept the practices of their predecessors, living alongside the Guarani, who came from the north of the Mesopotamia. Since the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, they all began disappearing following the wars, diseases and the assimilation of their remaining culture into modern cities. Few groups concentrated themselves in the province of Misiones, where they live until the present time.
The territory involved became part of the province of Entre Ríos, where extensive cattle breeding was developed until the creation of this national park.
Pampas' and marsh deers were not threatened despite being targeted by Guarani and Querandi hunters, but nowadays they need to be protected. This is probably due to the advance of economic activities during the last centuries, and a depredation that modified their natural habitat.
Currently the nature reserve protects the recovery of this native environment with its policies intended to achieve a sustainable development. Works include the community strengthening their link to its place.
Getting Here
You can get to the national park from Diamante city. From Santa Fe and then Paraná you have to follow the Provincial Route 11.
From Diamante to the south you arrive in the spots La Jaula and La Azotea, neighbouring the protected area.
The way from Rosario is rather short by the bridge and route to Victoria.
Touring & Services
The best way to know the park is going by water since it is mostly composed by islands. There are appropriate boats for this.
La Azotea just outside the limits of the park has a grocery and a payphone. Close to it, in La Jaula, there are paths, and a campsite with bonfire pits to have a close approach to nature.
