The Puraguá Wildlife Refuge is an intensive wildlife management area of 120 km2, proposed by the mountain tapir project led by the Huellas del Macizo de San Agustín Association (Huila, Colombia). It is located in the south of the department of Huila, it is part of the Guácharos-Puracé biological corridor and it is the area where the mountain tapir, which is the focal species of this wildlife refuge, has been most frequently identified.
It was decided to delimit the territory that belongs to the Granadillos and Balseros river basins as an intensive wildlife management area, because it is the area of influence of the Huellas del Macizo Association. The name Puraguá was used to refer to the biological corridor where it is included. The goal is to manage this area as a wildlife refuge, not only for the mountain tapir, but for all the biodiversity associated with this species, which is managed by the local community and where the threats to which the biodiversity is normally exposed, especially hunting and habitat loss, are minimized.
In the future, it is expected that this management model will be replicated in the other watersheds that make up the Guácharos-Puracé biological corridor to ensure the ecological integrity of this regional natural park, which connects the biota present in the central and eastern mountain ranges in the Colombian Massif region and where a viable mountain tapir population may exist.