The Sautatá field station, rebuilt in timber.
Between October 2025 and June 2026, with Patrimonio Natural (Colombia’s Fund for Biodiversity and Protected Areas) and funding from KfW (German development bank), MARA rebuilt the park’s field station in the Sautatá sector. The old building was demolished and three timber modules were built —staff quarters; kitchen, welfare and work area; and a multipurpose meeting hall— plus a restroom module, a machine room, a laundry area and a covered walkway connecting them. About 390 m² in total.
Darién rainforest, by the Atrato River.
Sautatá lies in the municipality of Riosucio (Chocó), inside Los Katíos National Natural Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is tropical rainforest in the Chocó biogeographic region: 26 to 32 °C, humidity above 85 % and 2,000 to 4,000 mm of rain a year.
Everything arrives by river.
The station can only be reached by water: from Turbo, across the Gulf of Urabá and up the Atrato River, a seven-to-eight-hour trip that cannot be made at night. In the dry season the river dropped and part of the materials had to be carried by hand. Demolition debris also left by river to Turbo.
Pressure-treated timber, stainless steel and solar power.
Concrete footings and pedestals with steel anchors; a structure in glued-laminated pine and sawn timber pressure-treated with CCA salts, joined with stainless-steel bolts; insulated sandwich roofing, tongue-and-groove timber walls and timber lattices that let air through; timber floors and folding doors.
There is no grid power at the site: the station runs on a 4.88 kW solar photovoltaic system with battery storage and a backup diesel generator. Wastewater goes to a septic tank with a grease trap and an infiltration field.
A base for protecting the park.
A station completed in June and handed over in July 2026, with staff quarters, a kitchen, work and meeting spaces for the National Parks team that protects Los Katíos, in one of the rainiest and most remote places in the country.
