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Costa Rica is located on the Central American Isthmus, surrounding the point 10° north of the equator and 84° west of the prime meridian. It has 212 km of Caribbean Sea coastline and 1,016 on the North Pacific Ocean.
Central America is a region of the Americas. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south. Central America consists of seven countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. Their combined population is estimated at 44.53 million (2016).
A wilderness area is a region where the land is in a natural state; where impacts from human activities are minimal—that is, as a wilderness. It might also be called a wild or natural area. Especially in wealthier, industrialized nations, it has a specific legal meaning as well: as land where development is prohibited by law. Many nations have designated wilderness areas, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States.
The protected areas of the United States are managed by an array of different federal, state, tribal and local level authorities and receive widely varying levels of protection. Some areas are managed as wilderness, while others are operated with acceptable commercial exploitation. As of 2020, the 36,283 protected areas covered 1,118,917 km2 (432,016 sq mi), or 12 percent of the land area of the United States. This is also one-tenth of the protected land area of the world. The U.S. also had a total of 787 National Marine Protected Areas, covering an additional 3,210,908 km2 (1,239,739 sq mi), or 37 percent of the total marine area of the United States.
National System of Conservation Areas or SINAC,, is part of the Ministry of Environment and Energy or MINAE of Costa Rica. It is the administrator for the nation's national parks, conservation areas, and other protected natural areas.
There are four categories of protected areas in India, constituted under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Tiger reserves consist of areas under national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. There are 51 tiger reserves in India. As of May 2012, the protected areas of India cover 156,700 square kilometres (60,500 sq mi), roughly 4.95% of the total surface area.
Caribbean La Amistad Conservation Area is an administrative area which is managed by SINAC for the purposes of conservation in the eastern part of Costa Rica, on the Caribbean coast. It contains several national parks, and a number wildlife refuges and other types of nature reserve.
Pacific La Amistad Conservation Area is an administrative area which is managed by SINAC for the purposes of conservation in the southern part of Costa Rica, on the Pacific side of the Continental Divide. It contains several National Parks, and a number Wildlife refuges and other types of nature reserve.
The flora of Belize is highly diverse by regional standards, given the country's small geographical extent. Situated on the Caribbean coast of northern Central America the flora and vegetation have been intimately intertwined with Belize's history. The nation itself grew out of British timber extraction activities from the 17th century onwards, at first for logwood and later for mahogany, fondly called "red gold" because of its high cost and was much sought after by European aristocracy. Central America generally is thought to have gained much of it characteristic flora during the "Great American interchange" during which time South American elements migrated north after the geological closure of the isthmus of Panama. Few Amazonian elements penetrate as far north as Belize and in species composition the forests of Belize are most similar to the forests of the Petén (Guatemala) and the Yucatán (Mexico).
The Talamancan montane forests ecoregion, in the tropical moist broadleaf forest biome, are in montane Costa Rica and Panama in Central America.
The Costa Rican páramo, also known as the Talamanca páramo, is a natural region of montane grassland and shrubland of Costa Rica and western Panama.
The Department of Wildlife Conservation is a non-ministerial government department in Sri Lanka. It is the government department responsible for maintaining national parks, nature reserves and wildlife in wilderness areas in Sri Lanka. Forest reserves and wilderness areas are maintained by the Department of Forest Conservation. The head of the Department is the Director General of Wildlife Conservation, formally known as Warden. It was established in October 1949 with Captain Cyril Nicholas, MC as its first Warden.
The La Amistad International Park, or in Spanish Parque Internacional La Amistad, formerly the La Amistad National Park, is a Transboundary Protected Area in Latin America, management of which is shared between Costa Rica and Panama, following a recommendation by UNESCO after the park's inclusion in the World Heritage Site list.
A strict nature reserve or wilderness area is the highest category of protected area recognised by the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), a body which is part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). These category I areas are the most stringently protected natural landscapes.
Protected areas of Panama include:
Palo Seco Forest Reserve, is a rainforest preserve in Panama in Bocas del Toro Province. The reserve was created in 1983 to be a conservation corridor linking Fortuna Forest Reserve and La Amistad International Park, and has an estimated area of 167.410 hectares.
Fortuna Forest Reserve is a 19,500 ha forest reserve in the mountains of Chiriquí Province, Panama.
The Chocó–Darién moist forests (NT0115) is an ecoregion in the west of Colombia and east of Panama. The region has extremely high rainfall, and the forests hold great biodiversity. The northern and southern parts of the ecoregion have been considerably modified for ranching and farming, and there are threats from logging for paper pulp, uncontrolled gold mining, coca growing and industrialisation, but the central part of the ecoregion is relatively intact.
The Eastern Panamanian montane forests (NT0122) is an ecoregion in the east of Panama and the extreme northwest of Colombia. It contains diverse flora and fauna, with considerable endemism. The ecoregion is largely intact due to its inaccessibility, although the opening of an extension of the Pan-American Highway has introduced threats from human activity.