Piedras Blancas National Park has a surface area of 143 km2. It is located in Puntarenas province in southern Costa Rica, near a small town called La Gamba, and belongs to the Osa Conservation Area.

With its 35,000 acres of tropical rainforest, Piedras Blancas National Park, a former extension of the nearby Corcovado National Park (in the Osa Peninsula), protects some of the last remaining stretches of undisturbed lowland primary (or old-growth) rainforest in Central America. Of all the land-based ecosystems in the world, tropical lowland rainforests are the most biologically diverse and serve as a refuge for many threatened species. The ParkParkrounding Playa Cativo is a critical last stand for an estimated 750 species of trees, 140 species of mammals, 367 species of birds (with several species endemic to the region), 117 species of reptiles, and almost 10,000 species of insects.

Initially a section of the Corcovado National Park, Piedras Blancas became an independent national park in 1999. In 1991, the Viennese musician Michael Schnitzel founded the “rainforest of the Austrians.”

This organization bought large pieces of the rainforest and the bordering beaches, severely endangered by the precise cutting that took place until the mid-90s. The organization aims to ensure the continuity of the biological processes while preserving biodiversity by reforesting all the areas and hiring park rangers. La Gamba village is part of this tremendous and historic initiative. It has good hostels and the well-known Esquinas Rainforest Lodge.

The area encompassing the Esquinas and Piedras Blancas rivers and surrounding mountains is covered with thick evergreen forest, a habitat for various birds, mammals, and reptiles. Coaching was a big problem, but the park rangers now control it.
Additionally, the Costa Rican government, the hydroelectric company Tenaska, the Nature Conservancy, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation have purchased land in Piedras Blancas, increasing the total protected area within the park to 80%.

iNfo: Parque Nacional Piedras Blancas  –  Tel: +(506) 2775 2620   Oficial Costa Rica Goverment Piedras Blancas National Park Facebook Page