The Environmental Challenge

The same qualities that make Roraima extraordinary also make it extraordinarily vulnerable.

The summit ecosystem has evolved over millions of years to produce the specific community of species that lives there now.

That community is adapted to specific conditions: specific levels of nutrient availability, specific disturbance regimes, specific predator-prey relationships.

Human visitors introduce disruption that the ecosystem did not evolve to accommodate.

The most obvious impacts of trekking on the summit include trampling of vegetation — particularly the slow-growing carnivorous plants and the bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) that cover much of the rock surface.