El Gran Chicó
Creating an urban trail in Bogotá to inspire the next generation of nature lovers – and defenders.
WhereNext team members behind The Birders Show produced El Gran Chicó’s video series in English, Spanish, and sign language. Interpretive trail signs link to the videos through QR codes.
Links: El Gran Chicó Trail / Grupo Ecomunitario
Bogotá’s Virrey Park is full of life on weekends and has become one of the favorite places for locals to enjoy some fresh air.
Visit on a Saturday morning, and you’ll find cyclists gliding down bike paths, bodybuilders mastering their pull-ups at fitness stations, or families just relaxing under the generous shade of the tropical forest canopy.
The three-kilometer-long park in northern Bogotá is also home to hundreds of species of birds and plants. Recently, it was outfitted with a self-guided trail that includes 14 stops in the park and the surrounding Chicó neighborhood – where visitors can learn about the local wildlife and see what Colombia’s capital city is doing to become more sustainable.
The trail was designed by Grupo Ecomunitario, a nonprofit association led by a couple who moved into the Chicó neighborhood in 2013 and has shown a steely determination to make their community and city more environmentally friendly.
It runs along the entire length of the Virrey Park and extends into the nearby Chicó Museum and 93rd Street Park.
“The bigger the army of nature lovers we can help empower, the more likely they will be to protect Colombia’s biodiversity. This project is a step forward in that process.”
“We want people to be more informed and more conscious of environmental topics, and therefore more active when it comes to taking decisions that affect biodiversity and climate,” said Juan Caicedo, the ecologist and scientific coordinator of Grupo Ecomunitario.
His wife, Maria Stella Sáchica, is a lawyer who specializes in environmental regulations.
“If people learn about all the birds or plants they are sharing this space with, perhaps they will think twice before polluting,” she said. "Having information of what is here also puts us in a better position to demand from our authorities a transition to a more sustainable city."
Project leaders Juan Caicedo and Maria Estela Sachica test the QR codes on an interpretive sign along the Gran Chicó trail in Bogotá’s Virrey Park. They are committed to creating a more environmentally friendly community and city.
WhereNext worked on the Gran Chicó trail for a reduced fee and deployed its team of graphic designers to make the art on the signs.
The Gran Chicó trail is easy to follow.
At each stop along the route, visitors encounter colorful thematic signs with a map, a brief text, and a QR code that links to a web page with videos and relevant documents.
One sign discusses the importance of “Green Streets” and how roads can be designed with verdant corridors to help cities become more resilient against climate change.
Further along the route, another sign mentions that more than 120 bird species can be spotted in the area and provides a link to a checklist for birdwatchers.
There are also signs about the area's other fauna, such as bees, butterflies, and mammals – the Gran Chicó is home to possums, weasels, and at least five species of bats. One sign even links to a guide of plants that people can grow in their gardens to turn them into “oases” for bees and other pollinators.
“We want people to be more informed and more conscious of environmental topics, and therefore more active when it comes to taking decisions that affect biodiversity and climate.”
Caicedo and Sáchica are proud of the self-guided trail – the first of its kind in Colombia’s capital. They believe it can inspire future generations of biologists and nature lovers not only in Bogotá but in other Colombian cities and rural areas.
“This can light up a spark in the minds of schoolchildren” Caicedo said. “And inspire them to innovate, keep studying, and push for sustainability.”
But the husband and wife team say that getting to this stage was not easy.
The couple first came up with the idea of designing a trail around 2014, when they began giving free tours of the Virrey Park and the Gran Chicó area to their neighbors and anyone else who wanted to join.
They had started the tours in the first few months of living there after noticing that the area was home to at least 60 bird species, including hummingbirds, owls, and Andean sparrows known for their lively songs, besides an impressive number of migratory species.
“We quickly had teachers who would come and ask if there was a way to bring their students,” Sáchica said. “Others asked if there was anyone providing tours on a regular basis because we could only do them when we had some spare time.”
The Gran Chicó trail opening ceremony in August, 2023. The trail is free and open to anyone who wants to learn about the area’s biodiversity.
Through Grupo Ecomunitario, Caicedo and Sáchica petitioned local government agencies to place signs on trees and other areas of the park because there was nothing in the area to highlight its outstanding biodiversity. They were rejected several times by officials indifferent to their proposals or resisted change.
However, an opportunity arose in 2021 when Bogotá’s city government accepted proposals for environmental projects through a scheme known as participatory budgeting.
Grupo Ecomunitario’s proposal to set up a self-guided nature trail in the Gran Chicó neighborhood was finally approved in December 2021, and they set out to find a partner to help them make a fun and informative trail.
They approached WhereNext and pitched the idea to CEO Gregg Bleakney.
“We just knew that we wanted something artsy that incorporated new technologies like QR codes so that we could link to videos and other information in English, Spanish, and sign language,” Caicedo said.
The request from Grupo Ecomunitario came while the agency was working on The Birders Show, a YouTube series with a mission to make the world of birding accessible to everyone.
Bleakney said he was quickly captivated by the idea of building a trail in the Chicó neighborhood that would help educate children, tourists, and locals about the area's biodiversity while encouraging people to connect with nature.
“We thought it very much aligned with our values,” he said.
Due to the project’s shoestring budget, WhereNext worked on the Gran Chicó trail for a reduced fee and deployed its team of graphic designers to make the art on the signs.
Meanwhile, some of the team members behind The Birders Show produced the video series linked to the signs’ QR codes, filming images of the area's biodiversity with drones and cinema-grade video cameras.
Scriptwriters from The Birders Show – which has already surpassed 200 episodes – also helped to make the text on the videos and the signs concise and appealing.
“At first, we had come up with scripts that were four minutes long,” Sáchica recalls. “But they helped us to turn them into one-minute videos, with shorter but more impactful messages that could stick with people.”
The three-kilometer-long Virrey Park in northern Bogotá is one of the most biodiverse in the city and home to hundreds of species of birds and plants.
Sáchica and Caicedo believe these trails can be replicated in other areas of Bogotá – like the wetlands on the city’s western edge or the mountains that border to the east.
Bleakney of WhereNext said the Gran Chicó trail is not just providing information about a place or giving people something fun to do. Ultimately, it gets people interested in protecting nature.
“In 2018, we produced a campaign for Colombia to convey to the world that Colombia is the country with the most bird species, and that was a great marketing mechanism,” Bleakney said.
“But we quickly discovered that it is equally or more impactful to help Colombia develop more birders than any other country,” he said. “The bigger the army of nature lovers we can help empower, the more likely they will be to protect Colombia’s biodiversity. This project is a step forward in that process.”
A trail well forged. Juan Caicedo and Maria Stella Sáchica are proud of the self-guided interpretive El Gran Chicó trail – the first of its kind in Colombia’s capital.
