![]() ![]() ![]() New protections will send a message that Costa Rica is serious about safeguarding its biological assets, says Andrea Meza, Costa Rica’s environment minister. The region’s waters are full of lucrative tuna, its sharks are targeted by poachers, and a 2018 report by a local environmental group found that illegal fishing was a significant and growing threat. The team found that the unprotected seamounts encircling the island were littered with fishing lines. While the region has been legally protected by Costa Rica for 39 years and has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1997, a 2009 survey by National Geographic environmental advocacy group Pristine Seas, led by Sala, found that the species populating the area were being threatened by nearby fishing vessels.Ī subsequent National Geographic documentary was produced about the region’s biodiversity and fishing threats, and christened Cocos Shark Island. There’s such biodiversity all over you.”Īnimals and plants of all different sizes are tucked inside its coral reefs and caves Cocos Island has some of the tropical world’s densest biomass, a scientific term for living organisms. “The first time I jumped into the water, I saw myself surrounded by sharks. “It’s known as the shark island,” says Carlos Manuel Uribe, president of Friends of Cocos Island, an environmental group started by former Costa Rican president Rodrigo Carazo Odio in 1994. It’s especially rich in sharks-home to 14 different species, three of which are endangered. That’s in addition to the more than 200 different plants and fish, 400 insects, 100 birds, and whales, dolphins, and sea lions that find refuge in the park. At least three species of birds, two fish, and two reptiles can be found nowhere else on Earth. The nine-square-mile island is just the visible tip of a line of submerged volcanoes that tower over the ocean floor and host an explosion of marine life. With it’s tropical rainforests and jagged, green mountains, some say the island inspired the setting for Jurassic Park.Īs the southernmost extension of North America, the island sits in the crook of a current called the North Equatorial Countercurrent, which is at an oceanic confluence of mating, migration, and feeding. It’s remote–more than 350 miles off shore, and unpopulated, though in the 17th century it was visited by pirates who supposedly hid an infamously pillaged loot known as the “ Treasure of Lima” that today could be worth $1 billion. An environmental gold mineĪt the heart of Costa Rica’s newly expanded reserve is “Isla de Coco”-also known as Treasure Island (and thought to have inspired the 1883 book). ![]()
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