A timber station for meetings on the island.
Between December 2025 and June 2026, with Patrimonio Natural (Colombia’s Fund for Biodiversity and Protected Areas) and funding from KfW (German development bank), MARA built the field station of Corales del Rosario and San Bernardo National Natural Park on Isla Grande: a hall for meetings, workshops and gatherings with the community, with a restroom and a storeroom, in timber on a concrete foundation. It replaced old cabins that were demolished.
Isla Grande, in the Rosario archipelago.
The station is on Isla Grande, in the Nuestra Señora del Rosario archipelago (District of Cartagena, Bolívar), inside the national park that protects the coral reefs of the Colombian Caribbean. It can only be reached by sea. It is MARA’s second project in the park, after the Isla Grande and Isla Múcura docks.
Sea, salt and coral ground.
Materials travelled from Medellín to Cartagena and crossed to the island in eight boat trips, against the trade winds and swell of December to April. Hard coral ground and old buried foundations turned up under the site. Two trees in the way of the works were felled with a permit from CARDIQUE, the environmental authority.
Timber protected from salt, and solar power.
A frame in timber pressure-treated with CCA salts, with diagonal round-timber columns that give the building its shape. Because of the salty air, the columns are embedded in the foundation and protected with waterproofing and neoprene, and the connections are stainless steel. Walls in timber lattice with insect screen, tongue-and-groove boards and fibre-cement; timber board floors; insulated aluminium panel roofing.
Power comes from 18 bifacial solar panels with lithium batteries, mounted on a round-timber frame. The station has lightning protection.
A meeting place for the park and the community.
A station completed in June 2026 where the park team meets, trains and works with the island community. Local people from Isla Grande were hired first for the works.
