The Coiba National Park (CNP), located in the Southeastern part of the Republic of Panama, encompasses over 2,700 square kilometers of islands, forests, beaches, mangroves and coral reefs. Among the spectacular marine and terrestrial environments of the CNP is Coiba Island, the largest uninhabited tropical forested island in the Americas. Eighty-five percent of the forests of Coiba Island are primary and almost untouched, serving as a haven for birds and mammals found nowhere else on Earth, as well as for species that have largely disappeared from the mainland. The CNP is one of the greatest remaining natural treasures in Panama. The remarkable preservation of Coiba Island is largely due to its use as a penal colony since 1920 - the prisoners have served as a strong deterrent to colonization by peasants and to the extraction of the island's abundant resources.
Due to the pristine nature of the island and its surrounding oceans, it was declared a National Park by the Panamanian government in 1992. But the situation in Coiba is changing radically as the government begins to close the island's penal colony. From a high of three thousand prisoners, there are now fewer than 100. Panama's National Authority of the Environment (known as ANAM) does not have the resources to protect a park of this size, particularly one that is 26 kilometers from one of Panama's most impoverished provinces. It is crucial that institutions and individuals coordinate with ANAM as well as local communities to design and implement strategies that will lead to the protection of this remarkable natural heritage.
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