Nevado Tres Cruces

Nevado Tres Cruces National Park was created in 1994 in the Atacama region and protects some 591 km² in two sectors of the altiplano, above four thousand metres, in one of the most extreme environments on the planet: thin air, intense radiation, enormous daily temperature swings and minimal precipitation.

The northern sector protects Laguna Santa Rosa and the Maricunga salt flat, one of the largest in northern Chile, and the southern sector Laguna del Negro Francisco. Both lagoons are high-Andean wetlands of shallow, saline water that concentrate an unexpected productivity in such a desert: the diatoms and small crustaceans living in them support very important concentrations of flamingos of all three South American species, including the Andean and James's flamingos, both threatened.

The park takes its name from the Tres Cruces massif, of more than 6,700 metres, and nearby rises Ojos del Salado, the highest volcano in the world. On the puna around the lagoons graze vicuñas and guanacos, and the vegetation is reduced to coirón grasses and llareta. The main threat is the water consumption of mining and of the lithium industry on the salt flat, which competes directly with maintaining the level of the lagoons.