| Fast Facts |
location
220 miles southeast of San José
ecoregion
Montane Isthmiam Pacific Forest
project size
1 million acres
public lands
Corcovado National Park, Piedras Blancas National Park, Marine Ballena National Park, Caño Island Biological Reserve, Golfito Wildlife Refuge, Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve, Terraba-Sierpe Wetland and Mangrove Reserves
partners
Costa Rican Ministry of Environment and Energy, National System of Conservation Areas, Osa Biological Corridor Coalition, Costa Rica-USA Foundation for Cooperation, Conservation International
natural events
Turtle nesting, whale migration and breeding, fall and winter | |
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Twenty-five years after its first national park was created here, the Osa Peninsula remains Costa Rica's last wild frontier. |
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Rain forest, Osa Peninsula.
© Michael Melford |
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The Osa Peninsula juts into the Pacific Ocean off the Costa Rican coast, a remote paradise harboring a diversity of habitats and biological richness rarely found in such a small geographic area. Here the jungle meets the sea: lowland tropical rain forest lines pristine white-sand beaches, and mangroves front freshwater lagoons. Known as the last wild frontier in Costa Rica, the peninsula's inaccessibility spared it for many years from development.
The Osa Peninsula was once an island that later connected to the mainland of the Central American Isthmus. As a result, it has an extraordinary rate of endemism -- of species found nowhere else on Earth. The canopy of the rain forest - with the greatest tree species diversity in all of Central America -- harbors not only the country's largest population of scarlet macaws but also 52 species of nocturnal bats feeding on some 6,000 types of insects. Large cats such as jaguar and puma share the forest floor with tapir and anteaters while howler monkeys chatter overhead. Offshore, the deep blue waters of the Pacific and Golfo Dulce host migrating humpback whales and sea turtles that nest on Osa's shores. |
Scarlet macaw.
© Pierre Howard |
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In 1975 The Nature Conservancy helped create Corcovado National Park, now the crown jewel in Costa Rica's park system. Although the park today protects one-third of the Osa Peninsula, exploitation of natural resources, often inside Corcovado and other national parks, continues to degrade the forest. Gold mining, once the primary economic driver on the peninsula beginning with a gold rush in the 1930s, brought dams and tunnels to the area and polluted rivers and streams. Logging, both legal and illegal, poses the principal threat to Osa's natural assets. | |
Today the Conservancy is acquiring private land still held within the borders of Piedras Blancas National Park. On the nearly 60 percent of the peninsula that is in private hands, we have targeted those lands that serve as corridors between protected areas and are purchasing conservation easements to ensure safe passage for wildlife.
Learn more about The Nature Conservancy's work in Costa Rica. |
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| Conservation Profile |
targets
Lowland tropical forest, jaguar, spider monkeys, scarlet macaw, mangrove forest, tapir, coral reefs, freshwater lagoons, four species of sea turtles, whales, dolphins
stresses
Fragmentation and destruction of habitat, deforestation from logging and poor land-use planning, hunting, illegal extraction of natural resources, gold mining
strategies
Consolidate disparate public lands, encourage conservation management of public and private lands, strengthen local partner organizations
results
Corcovado National Park established and expanded to 100,000 acrescontributing to consolidation of Piedras Blancas National Park | | | | |
