Coiba National Park and its Special Zone of Marine Protection

Isolation kept Coiba wild: long used as a penal colony, the island saw little development, and its Pacific moist forests — shielded from cold winds and the swings of El Niño — became an engine of evolution with high endemism among mammals, birds and plants. With 38 smaller islands and the rich waters of the Gulf of Chiriqui, the park is a corridor for pelagic fish and marine mammals and a refuge of the threatened crested eagle. UNESCO inscribed it in 2005.