Golfo de Chiriquí National Park
The Golfo de Chiriquí National Park includes the coastal, insular and marine area of the North West of Panama. The marine area contains 18 larger islands and rocky promontories, with important surrounding marine and costal ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems and habitats thrive both in the islands and along the isthmus coastal strip, especially estuaries, mangrove swamps, coral reefs, rocky sea beds, sand and silt beds and large intertidal flats.
24 species of coral (of which 4 are exclusive to Panama and two are endemic), 34 species of smooth corals, 14 species of sponges and some 800 species of molluscs have been reported.
The fish form a very diverse and representative group. More than 800 species account for just over 85% of the fish fauna of Tropical Eastern Pacific. 33 species of sharks are known in the area including the whale shark, the hammerhead and the bull shark, all of them threatened by overfishing and finning.
Its waters include 20 species of cetaceans; among them, the humpback whale, the sperm whale, the killer whale, the short-finned pilot whale, the false killer whale and the bottlenose and spotted dolphins.
Its proximity to the Osa Conservation Area in Costa Rica with similar Marine Protected Areas and ecosystems, means that both regions could potentially be integrated into a large functional marine zone managed in a sustainable fashion by both countries. This would not only be of enormous benefit to the fisheries and biodiversity conservation in the region, but would also foster the development of tourism and other related economic activities.
