FUNCTIONS AND OBJECTIVES OF OUR NATIONAL PARKS

Preserve biodiversity and ecosystems
National parks keep wide representative areas of the natural ecosystems. This allows for real conservation of the native flora and fauna and their depending relationships.

Preservation of habitat for endangered species
National parks preserve populations of flora and fauna species endangered or scarce, such as large carnivores, or rare or with a very limited distribution.

Preservation of landscapes
National Parks preserves sites of exceptional natural beauty. Their total conservation in these public areas allows for the contemplation of these highlights of nature by the whole community. At the same time, many national parks show evidence of man's past in these same natural settings where they lived, for our better knowledge of history.

Foment education and recreation
With adequate amenities for visitors and quality sites, national parks are the ideal frame for environmental education. For visitors to best enjoy the parks, they have information desks and visitor centers, authorized guides, trails, viewing overlook, wayside exhibits and published material. Those areas that are most visited have interpretive centers.

Incentive research
National parks are ideal places to carry out scientific research since they are well preserved. This is achieved through agreements with other institutions, offering facilities within the park that include the help of technical personnel who are well trained and have good knowledge of the area.
The information thus gained is essential for the management of the area, and to make locals learn to value and protect it.

Protect paleontological remains
National parks protect fossil beds wherever they are found. In this way their study is sure to provide subjets for interpretation classes.

Preserve our cultural diversity
National parks treasure the various ways in which man relates to nature in the past and at present. They are a wonderful reference to learning how to plan the course of our future.

PRESERVING PATAGONIA'S BIODIVERSITY

The system of national parks in Argentina includes 33 protected areas and covers more than 3'500,000 has, about 1.25% of the country (a greater area than the province of Misiones), and Monte Leon, which is in the process of becoming a national park. It is believed that the ideal proportion should be around 5% of the natural reserves distributed in a balanced way through the bio geographical regions of the country.
The system at present includes a great proportion of the enormous variety of natural habitats, though they appear with varying degrees of representation. The southern Andean woods and the yungas (mountain forests of the NW) are considered to be satisfactorily represented, but other biomes such as the Pampas prairies and the spinal (algarroba and calden woodlands- Prosopis sp.) are hardly represented.
Our National Parks enclose the main natural sceneries of the country, places of great tourist interest, sites for which Argentina is internationally famous. As such, these have become important for the development of various regions of the country. More than 1'500.000 people per year visit Argentina's national parks.