Guanacaste National
Park:
Travel
to Costa Rica
Created in 1989, Guanacaste
National Park was declared with the principal intention
of forming a biological corridor to connect Santa
Rosa National Park with high elevation cloud forest
and Caribbean slope rain forest. The 70,000 hectares
of Guanacaste National Park extend from Santa Rosa's
border with the PanAmerican Highway northeastward
to the peaks of Orosi and Cacao Volcanoes and across
the Continental Divide onto the Caribbean slopes of
these two volcanoes.
This extension of Santa
Rosa will hopefully provide a sufficiently large area
of protected land to ensure the future of wide-ranging
species such as Jaguar and Mountain Lion, while at
the same time allowing those species of birds and
insects that make local seasonal migrations between
the dry forest and the evergreen cloud and rain forests
to continue their annual movements without threat
of continued loss of habitat.
Getting there: From Liberia,
take the 
PanAmerican
Highway north for 42 km. and
then take a right turn onto a dirt road (across from
the turnoff for Cuajiniquil). From here it is a rough
17 km. to the Maritza Biological Field Station.
Climate: A wide variety
of climates are represented here given the change
in elevation from 300 meters to 1,659 meters (the
summit of Cacao Volcano) within the park and the crossing
from dry forest to rain forest as one goes eastward
over the Continental Divide.
History: The creation
of Guanacaste National Park was an ambitious project
spearheaded by Dr. Daniel Janzen whose efforts were
critical in raising the international donations necessary
to purchase the land in question. Using the clever
slogan, "How to Grow a National Park," Janzen stressed
the need to reclaim degraded pasture land and recreate
more of the severely threatened tropical dry forest
habitat as well as a biological corridor to cooler
and moister habitats.
Fortunately, the conservation
campaign came at a time when international beef prices
were low and many of the ranch owners with extensive
holdings in the area were willing, if not eager, to
sell their rather nonproductive grazing lands.
Among the primary goals
of Guanacaste National Park are the desire to be "user
friendly," encourage local participation in environmental
programs, and employee as many of the previous ranch
hands as possible as park personnel.
