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The Los Flamencos Fauna and Flora Sanctuary is located on the Colombian Caribbean coast. Located between the Caribbean Sea and the dry forest of La Guajira, is this small area of ​​coastal lagoons watered by streams that is an important supply area for the birds that give it its name: flamingos. Its surface is part of the department of La Guajira.

It is believed that the area was inhabited by the Guanebucanes, an aboriginal group belonging to the Arawak family. Archaeological remains show that it was a town of farmers, fishermen and sailors who lived on the banks of rivers and the sea. After the Spanish incursions, the Guanebucanes emigrated to the Sierra Nevada and became associated with the Kogi.

The sanctuary consists of four swamps that are highly productive and offer optimal conditions for the region's wildlife.

The extraction of charcoal and the excessive exploitation of the forests for their wood has endangered many of the forests that surround the reserve. This undoubtedly endangers the wildlife that inhabits Los Flamencos.

During these rainy seasons, the swamps communicate with the sea thanks to the greater contribution of water through the streams. Shrimp take advantage of these conditions to enter them for the purpose of reproducing.





To get to it from Santa Marta it is necessary to take the Caribbean trunk up to about 10 km before Riohacha in Camarones.

The sanctuary is located approximately at 11 ° 24´ North and 73 ° 7´ West, in the territory of the department of La Guajira, in the jurisdiction of the municipalities of Riohacha. In its northeastern limits is the town of Camarones, a Riohacha village whose economic activity is shrimp fishing, hence its name.

The sanctuary is located between the Camarones district and the Tapias river. It has innumerable swamps, of which there are four quite large whose names are Manzanillo, Laguna Grande, Ciénaga del Navío Quebrado and Tocoromanes. These swamps are separated from the sea by sand barriers that have small connections with the sea. The Camarones River empties into the Ciénaga del Navío Quebrado, forming a microdelta in turn fed by other streams.



Declared in 1992 National and Cultural Heritage of Colombia, the sanctuary is a territory of swamps, lagoons and dry forest that guards a delicate ecosystem composed of multiplicity of birds, fish, crustaceans and plants. The area is one of the few in the Colombian Caribbean that still offers refuge to flamingos, birds with beautiful pink plumage whose nests, built in mud, reach 60 cm in height.

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