Costa Rica national parks

The national parks in Costa Rica are intended to protect the flora and fauna and thus they serve directly to protect the environment. There are now a number of animal species that can only be observed here. In total, around 25 percent of the country’s area is under general nature conservation and has been declared as protected zones or protected areas. There is a separate national park administration, the SINAC. As an authority, it is responsible for the protection of the national parks and their administration.

In the past, the protected areas were divided into different categories. There are pure national parks, which are of national and international interest and are only accessible for tourist and scientific purposes. But there are also biological reserves, which serve to protect ecosystems and have been made accessible for educational purposes and for science. In a nature reserve, animals and plants should receive a protected habitat. The national nature reserve protects certain animal species and is a kind of preliminary stage to the biological reserves and national parks.

There are various protected areas in Costa Rica to which the national parks are assigned. These are, for example, La Amistad with the National Park Tapantí or Parque Internacional La Amistad. On the central Pacific coast, it’s La Cangreja or Manuel Antonio. Other national parks are the Arenal volcano, the Tenorio Volcano, Tortuguero, Corcovado, or the Isla del Coco.

The state national parks are the protected areas that exist on the one hand, and on the other hand, there are several private initiatives that have dedicated themselves to the protection of plants and animals. There is even a project with the participation of the Austrians, it is the “Rainforest of the Austrians”. However, it is not only the national parks in Costa Rica that are important but also the parks in the neighboring countries, because this is where many animals retreat in dry or rainy weather. Because of these migrations, the animal population in the parks is never the same in every season.