Corcovado National Park

No other place on Earth protects wildlife like Corcovado National Park. More than 370 kinds of birds, 500 species of trees, 140 mammals, 40 varieties of freshwater fish, 150 orchids, 120 reptiles and 6000 types of insects are just the tip of the iceberg.

Located on western tip of the Osa Peninsula, Corcovado National Park safeguards more than 100,000 acres (41,787 ha) of land and 5,856 acres (2,400 ha) of surrounding ocean, embracing as many as two-thirds of the planet’s estimated plant and animal species.

Endangered species such as jaguars, pumas, scarlet macaws, crocodiles, tapirs, poison-dart frogs and golden toads find a safe haven within the nine different habitats protected by Corcovado National Park, including the last very humid tropical forest ecosystem in Central America and the American Pacific.

Including thirteen separate ecosystems, almost one hundred species of trees and nearly four hundred species of birds, Corcovado National Park has been called "the most biologically intense place on earth" by no less an authority than the National Geographic Society.

Here among the largest trees of Costa Rica, can be found the densest population of tapirs, jaguars and scarlet macaws in Meso-America.

Preserving the rainforest is vital because already one-half of the earth's rainforest has been destroyed at a rate of fifty acres a minute - an area the size of New York state every year. Gone will be the rainforest where 25% of our prescription drugs have already been found and where many others wait to be discovered. The world's first studies of the tropical forest canopies were done in Corcovado National Park. Because of the astonishing variety of unknown life forms discovered within these "hidden worlds" the estimation of life upon this planet had to be increased twenty fold.