Location: near San Jose Map
Area: 475.8 km²
Braulio Carrillo National Park is one of the most interesting and unique areas of protected rainforest in Central America. Braulio Carrillo National Park is easily accessible from San Jose via Guapiles Highway. Covering the area of 478.5 sq km it is home to 600 species of plants, 500 species of birds and 135 species of mammals. One of reasons for such biodiversity is difference of attitudes. Braulio Carrillo National Park contains several volcanoes, many of which are dormant. This include Cerro Chompipe, Cerro Cacho Negro, Cerro las Tres Marias and Barva volcano that has three crater lakes on the top of its summit.
The forest that covers the Braulio Carrillo
National Park, like a real and immense lung, provides a delicate
carbon dioxide-oxygen balance to the inhabitants of the two slopes.
Within the boundaries of this famous national park, visitors
discover five distinctly separate forests. It has a different and
varied segment of the natural kingdom of Costa Rica. Located only 24
km from the capital of the country, San José, the Braulio Carrillo
National Park is an attraction in the wildlife wildlife. Samples of
almost all varieties of Costa Rican native birds that populate their
forests. Both the humid tropical forest, and premontane and montane
humid forests, host hundreds of varieties of orchids and ferns.
In the steep wooded mountains, there are 6000 species of plants
(half of the species of plants that exist in Costa Rica), of which
at least 50 are endemic. In addition you can find almost 515 species
of birds (75% of the total of the country and 28 are endemic),
thousands of insects, and dozens of reptiles and amphibians. Among
the mammals are the big cats, such as the jaguar and the puma, the
tapir, the anteater, 3 species of monkeys (50% of the country's
primate species) and a wide variety of bats.
Threats to flora
and fauna
The park has only 25 employees for a virgin area of
47,580 ha. Due to this lack of control hunters can relatively
easily enter the park and perform their duties there. And it is that
the Braulio, with its 140 species of mammals and 515 species of
birds, opens many opportunities to illegal hunters.
Illegal
hunters are mainly looking for saino, tepezcuintle, agouti, monkeys
and guans. There are also hunters looking for live prey for illegal
trade in endangered species, the main targets of these hunters are
monkeys and birds. Another threat is illegal deforestation, as
loggers enter the Braulio Carrillo National Park and begin logging.
To a lesser degree, there is contamination of the road that
crosses the Braulio Carrillo National Park, although although it may
be a threat to the forest, it has also demonstrated its capacity to
resist the human environment. And it is demonstrated that 80% of all
Costa Rican exports and imports pass through the highway, this
should be a great burden for the forest and yet there are no signs
that this affects them. Neither does it seem to affect the proximity
of the cities where 53% of the population of the country lives or of
the 46 urban communities with which it borders. That is why many
researchers recognize that the forests of the park should be studied
more thoroughly since they have a great determination to preserve
themselves in the middle of the urban environment. But to guarantee
more thorough studies it is necessary that the government contribute
resources to the protection of the park.