[2] Given its large area, embracing 23 municipalities[2] with more than 80,000 inhabitants,[citation needed] the level of protection varies from one part of the park to another, allowing a diversity of economic activity in the majority of the territory.

[citation needed] The beauty of the countryside and the flora and fauna combine with a cultural heritage to make the region an important destination for tourism.

as a "haughty staircase to heaven"[5] of pure white travertine, with labyrinthine caves of water along the right bank of the Segura in the hamlet of the same name.

[3] In the wettest areas are ancient yews (Taxus baccata) and European holly (Ilex aquifolium), both scarce in Andalusia.

[3] The park contains prehistoric Rupestrian painting sites, including in the Cuevas de Pardis near the Segura River, and there is evidence of Iberian settlements dating from 2000 BCE.

[10] The sewage treatment plant at Arroyo Frío intended for about 400 people is saturated every weekend, when ten times that number of visitors arrive, and inadequately treated fecal matter makes its way into the Guadalquivir, to the detriment of fauna and flora.

Other lesser problems are illegal hunting and logging, animals killed on the highways that pass through the park, and reduction and fragmentation of habitats.

Climate change from global warming has already caused irregularities in the level of precipitation in Cazorla, which endangers the native plants and, by extension, the ecosystem.