History
In 1908, Peter Fawcett first explored the area that is now the national park. It was not until almost 70 years later that the area was looked at again. In the 1970s geologists were sent to the area to survey the rock formations of the Precambrian Shield region in Bolivia. This expedition attracted the attention of Noel Kempff Mercado, an esteemed conservation biologist of the time. Mercado recognized the global significance of the area enough to propose a campaign to preserve it. Unfortunately, Mercado was murdered by drug traffickers and never saw his dream become a reality. Many of his fellow citizens responded. The government established the park and named it in his honour. It came into existence in 1988 as a 750,000 hectare area of undisturbed land.
Read more about this topic: Noel Kempff Mercado National Park
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)