The best ones of the world

Costa Rica established the System of National Parks in 1970 to prevent the destruction of wild areas. Now 12 % of the country is protected as national parks, and 16 % as indigenous reserves, biological reserves, refuges and strips of the fauna and flora.

This means that more than a quarter of the territory of Costa Rica has sided with conservation.

Many species threatened or even extinct in neighboring countries still grow here.

The parks surround complex ecosystems that go from cloudy forest, savannah, rainy forest and reefs of chorale, and contain an extraordinary biodiversity. In most of the parks it is possible to see several different habitats in the course of a day. In an international effort they have being trying to catalogue the natural resources of Costa Rica. In one of the last counts, they calculated that it has over 200 mammals (including six species of felines: jaguar, ocelot, margay, puma, jaguarondi and tiger cats),

857 species of birds, 10.000 insects and more than 9.000 species of high plants, including 1.200 orchids.

Most of the national parks are accessible to the tourists and the eco tourism is an important generating factor of the means necessary to continue the protection of the environment. More than 290.000 people visited the parks in 1994, but if you choose a weekday and a park outside the Central Valley it is probable that you won't see tourists in the park.