Noel Kempff Mercado National Park

Listen for a moment. There is no engine noise here, no road hum, no distant city. There is only the buzz of insects, the call of a bird you may never see, and somewhere ahead, the low and steady roar of falling water. The air is warm and heavy. The ground under your boots is red earth, packed hard, with roots running across it like ropes. You are in one of the most remote protected landscapes in South America.

This is Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, in the far northeast of Bolivia's Santa Cruz Department. It sits right against the border with Brazil. To the east runs the Iténez River, which Brazilians call the Guaporé. To the west runs the Paraguá. Between them lies a vast territory of forest, savanna, wetland and stone. It covers well over a million hectares. That makes it one of the largest national parks in the country.

The park carries the name of a person, and his story is not a gentle one. Noel Kempff Mercado was a Bolivian biologist and naturalist from Santa Cruz. He spent much of his life studying and protecting the wild places of eastern Bolivia. He also helped to create the city's botanical garden and zoo. In 1986, he travelled to the plateau here with a small scientific team. By terrible chance, their plane landed near a hidden cocaine laboratory. Kempff and two companions were killed.

The murder shocked Bolivia. The protected area had existed since 1979 under a different name, Huanchaca National Park. In 1988, the government renamed it in his honour. Later, in the late 1990s, the park grew much larger. And in the year 2000, UNESCO added it to the World Heritage List. So when you hear his name, remember that this forest is also a memorial. It honours a scientist who died doing the work he loved.

Now look up toward the horizon. That long, flat wall of rock is the Huanchaca Plateau, called the Meseta de Huanchaca in Spanish. Locals also call this range the Serranía de Huanchaca. The plateau is made of ancient sandstone. Its rocks belong to the Precambrian, the oldest chapter of Earth's history, long before dinosaurs, long before most complex life. The cliffs rise sharply from the forest below, several hundred metres in places. On top, the plateau stretches flat for great distances.

Here is a story many visitors enjoy. It is often said that this plateau helped to inspire Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World. In that book, explorers find dinosaurs living on an isolated tableland in South America. The British explorer Percy Fawcett surveyed this border region in the early twentieth century. He described these cliffs, and Conan Doyle knew of his reports. The link is popular and plausible, but treat it as a good tale rather than proven fact.

What makes this park so important to scientists is not one landscape, but many. Within its borders, several great ecosystems meet. In the north there is tall, humid Amazon rainforest. Elsewhere you find dry tropical forest that loses its leaves in the dry season. On the plateau there is cerrado, a type of open savanna with twisted, fire-hardened trees. And in the lowlands lie seasonally flooded grasslands and swamps. Few places on Earth hold so many transitions in one protected space.

That mix of habitats supports a remarkable range of life. Researchers have recorded more than six hundred species of birds here. That is a very large share of all the birds in Bolivia. Watch the sky for macaws, flying in pairs and calling loudly. Look near the rivers for herons and storks. In the savanna, you may see the rhea, a large flightless bird related to the ostrich. Bring patience. Birds here often reveal themselves by sound long before you see them.

The mammals are harder to find, but they are here. Jaguars and pumas move through the forest. The maned wolf, a tall, long-legged animal with reddish fur, hunts in the open grasslands. Giant anteaters walk slowly through the savanna, their bushy tails held low. In the rivers live giant otters, which travel in noisy family groups. You may also see black caimans resting on the riverbanks. Most of these animals avoid people, so any sighting is a gift.

And then there is the water. From the edge of the plateau, rivers drop over the cliffs in a series of waterfalls. The most famous is Arco Iris, which means Rainbow in Spanish. On sunny days, its spray catches the light and forms rainbows in the air. Another well-known fall is El Encanto, the Enchantment. Reaching them usually takes a long day of travel by boat, vehicle or on foot. The effort is part of the experience.

Here is a surprise many visitors miss. In the late 1990s, this park became part of one of the world's early large forest carbon projects. Bolivia, conservation groups and private companies worked together to protect forest that might otherwise have been logged. The idea was that standing trees store carbon, and protecting them helps the climate. The project was much studied and also debated. But it placed this remote corner of Bolivia inside a global conversation about forests and climate.

A few honest words about the visitor experience. This is not a park with paved trails and cafés. It is far from Santa Cruz city, and getting here takes real planning. Most people travel with licensed guides and arrange transport in advance. The weather can change quickly, and the rainy season makes many routes difficult. Insects are everywhere. But that difficulty is exactly why the forest is still so intact. Few people come, and the land remains wild.

Before you move on, pause where you are. Notice the colour of the light through the leaves. Notice the smell of damp soil, and the sound of the water, or the wind across the grass. Somewhere above you, the old sandstone cliffs have stood for an almost unimaginable stretch of time. Noel Kempff Mercado wanted places like this to survive. As you walk on, listen carefully. The forest is still speaking in calls, rustles and rushing water... and you are one of the few people here to hear it.