Campo de los Alisos

Campo de los Alisos National Park was created in 1995 in the south-west of Tucumán province, on the eastern slope of the Cumbres Calchaquíes and the Nevado del Aconquija, and protects some 100 km².

Its value is the gradient: in little more than twenty horizontal kilometres the ground climbs from eight hundred metres to more than five thousand, passing through the whole sequence of the southern yungas. Below, the piedmont forest; then the montane forest with laurel and horco molle; higher up, the mountain forest of aliso del cerro and pino del cerro, which gives the park its name; and above the forest, the cloud grasslands and the high-altitude páramo. It is one of the few places where that succession is preserved complete and unbroken.

The yungas are Argentina's richest ecosystem in biodiversity and also one of the most threatened by the advance of the agricultural frontier. The park is home to taruca, black-capped capuchin, toco toucan and an abundant birdlife, and on its upper ground lie the Inca ruins of La Ciudacita, or Pueblo Viejo, one of the southernmost known Inca settlements. The park forms part of the Yungas Biosphere Reserve, recognised by UNESCO in 2002.