San Rafael National Park
San Rafael National Park is a proposed national park in Paraguay covering an area of Atlantic Forest, grasslands, and wetlands. Though it was declared in 1992 that the area was to be reserved as a national park, no further steps have been taken to formalize its status. The area is under threat both from large-scale farming and from small slash-and-burn farmers.
Location
The San Rafael National Park is divided between the Itapúa and Caazapá departments. It has an area of. The park is in the upper Tebicuary River basin, in the San Rafael Hills. Elevations are from. The park would be part of the proposed Trinational Biodiversity Corridor, which aims to provide forest connections between conservation units in Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina in the Upper Paraná ecoregion.Legal status
The park was declared an "Area Reserved for a National Park" in 1992, with an area of. All of the land is privately owned, leading to disputes over the designation, and in 2002 the area was declared a "managed resources reserve". This is equivalent to the IUCN protected area category VI. The 2002 change was reversed in 2005. A decision regarding whether the park will formally be declared either a national park or a managed resources reserve is still pending. The NGO Guyra Paraguay has purchased of land in the park, which it manages as a protected area.Environment
Temperatures range from, with the hottest period in October–April and the coolest period in May–September. Average annual rainfall is. Rain falls throughout the year, but the wettest months are October–February.The park covers an area of Alto Paraná Lowland Atlantic Forest, a particularly threatened type of forest in the Atlantic Forest biome. San Rafael is in a region of transition from tall, humid forests in the Paraná River basin to lower, drier forests in the Paraguay River basin. About 80% of the area is forest-covered. It also has broad stretches of natural grasslands and wetlands in the northern part of Paraguay's mesopotamian grasslands.