Madidi

Declared in 1995, Madidi spans an altitudinal transition from 200 to almost 6,000 metres above sea level, which lets it hold an extraordinary biodiversity: scientific studies place it among the protected areas with the greatest documented species richness on the planet, with more than 1,000 bird species — roughly 11% of all the birds in the world — and several hundred mammals. It can only be reached by river or air from the Amazon town of Rurrenabaque, and much of its tourism runs through community ecolodges operated directly by local indigenous communities, such as the historic Chalalán, founded with international support in the 1990s as a pioneering model of community tourism in the Bolivian Amazon.