Manuel Antonio National Park

The park is located in a region with high temperature and high levels of precipitation. Annual precipitation average is 3.875mm. Dry months are January, February, March; Rainy months are August, September, and October.

Manuel Antonio National Park is in a Humid Rain Forest life zone. It protects primary and secondary forests, manglar, beach vegetation and sea environments.

LThe most characteristic flora inside the primary forest are: guacimo Colorado, pilon, cedro maria, guapinol sura, guapinol Negro, arbol maderable (endangered species), lechoso, madrono, cenizaro and ceiba. In the secondary forest, that covers ancient crop fields, the most common species are: balsa, peine de mico (monkey's comb), guarumo, guacimo, capulin blanco and garocho. The manglar, that covers approximately 18 hectares, is build by three species: manglar Colorado (red manglar), botoncillo and mariquita.

Within the beach vegetation outstands the manzanillo, tree that has milk like substance and poisonous fruit, almond tree, roble sabana (sabana oak) and coconut palm.

Fauna is very assorted, 109 mammal species and 184 of bird have been identified, within the most outstanding we find the raccoon, pizote, guatusa, two finger perezoso, three finger perezoso, carablanca(white face monkey), congo, and titi monkey (endangered species due to the destruction of its habitat and it use as a pet).

It is frequent to see birds such as: tucancillo (small tucan), pelican, guaco, fisher gavilan, martin pescador verde, gallito de agua, serpents and infinity of insects.

LSome of the parks environment problems are the deficient planning of the tourist development around the area, causing a massive flow of visitors to the area and the contamination of the sea. On another side the great scale single product crops cause a deterioration of the soil and sedimentation in the sea. Garbage and the tendency of visitors to feed wildlife are some other problems the area holds.

There are three management programs, the Environment Education Program whose objective is to build an environmental consciousness among the parks neighbor communitie.

The Protection Program that pretends to keep to a minimum the level of physical and biological alterations of human origin, to protect the visitor and personnel and to keep the current laws of conservation applied.

Last the Administration Program that joins the local communities with the public and private entities in planning and developing the area.