La Amistad International Park (also called PILA), is a transboundary park created by the governments of Costa Rica and Panama to join the Reserve of the Cordillera de Talamanca (Costa Rica) and the Amistad National Park (Panama) into a single entity where management is shared between the two countries.
The park was initially protected by Executive Decree No. 25 of 28 September 1983. Then, together with Costa Rica, was declared International Park on 6 September 1988 by Directors Resolution No. 021-88 and declared International Peace Park, by Unesco in the same year, and together with the Talamanca Range of Costa Rica, a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in the same year.
With an area of 401,000 ha, of which 207,000 ha are in Panama and the rest in Costa Rica (193,929 ha), is difficult to access in both sectors, with much of the park unexplored.
The geographic location of this exceptional site of Central America, which retains traces of the Quaternary glaciations-has facilitated contact between the flora and fauna of North America and South America.
Most of the surface of this region, inhabited by four different indigenous people, is covered by tropical rainforests. The conservation of the site is the subject of close cooperation between Costa Rica and Panama.
Composed mostly of rainforest, the area includes the Cordillera de Talamanca, where are the highest peaks of the two countries.
The declaration of the UNESCO World Heritage refers to this site (together with Costa Rica) as: "The entire protected area comprises the single largest natural forest unit in Central America, containing several hundred endemic plant species and one of the last major refuges for threatened fauna. No other protected area complex in Central America contains as many viable populations, species, life zones, or as much altitudinal variation. The Talamanca range is estimated to harbour almost four percent of the varieties of all terrestrial species on earth".
PUBLICATIONS
