Location: Bocas del Tora District Map
Area: 13,000 ha
Tel. 758 6802
Closed: Sat & Sun
Isla Bastimentos National Marine Park is a nature reserve situated in the Bocas del Tora District in the North- West Panama. Isla Bastimentos National Marine Park covers an area of 13,000 ha of Archipelago Bocas del Toro. This biosphere reserve was created in 1988 to protect coral reefs, mammals, birds, reptiles, birds and multiple crustaceous that live here. Occasionally sea turtles come to the sandy shores of the national park to lay their eggs. The closest large settlement is Bastimentos and other city across the Canal de Bocas del Toro channel, Bocas del Toro has a small airport.
The nature of Isla Bastimentos National Marine
Park is very rich, including Caribbean ecosystems of forests,
mangroves, swamps, coral reefs and beaches with coconut trees. The
park is an example where the rainforests of the tropics alternate
with the typical forests of hill and the plains of the coast. There
are plenty of tall trees, dense understories and palms, black,
reddish and veined mahogany. In the swamps abound the yolillo and
orey palm, thatv serve as shelters of crocodiles, the manatees, the
alligators, the vines, the shad fish, the earwigs and the coral
snakes.
There are some 155 species constituting the
vegetation class with the greatest species richness. Also, of the
502 flora species registered from the sites visited in Bocas del
Toro, 60% of them were observed in the Isla Bastimentos National
Marine Park and its areas of influence. The greatest diversity of
species of the Isla Bastimentos National Marine Park is found in
coral reefs, whereas seagrass beds and mangroves have a smaller
number of species. These coral reefs can be found varied fish,
anemones, sponges, sea urchins and several species of turtles that
feed on algae.