National Park + private reserves · Costa Rica · 42,560 hectares
Osa Peninsula
National Geographic called it "the most biologically intense place on Earth."
Osa Peninsula: the numbers, sourced
As of July 2026.
- 42,560 ha + 3,354 marine — Corcovado National Park, established 1975. SINAC, 1975.
- ~2.5% of global biodiversity — held by the Osa Peninsula on a fraction of a percent of Earth’s surface. National Geographic; NYBG Osa project, current.
- ~1,000 acres — private rainforest reserve held by Lapa Rios as a corridor beside the park. Lapa Rios, current.
- 10,000+ native trees — planted by the lodge in its reforestation program. Lapa Rios, to date.
What was lost at Osa Peninsula?
Before 1975 the Osa Peninsula was being worked over by loggers and gold miners — the largest lowland rainforest on Central America's Pacific coast, coming down tree by tree.
What brought it back?
Costa Rica created Corcovado National Park in 1975: 42,560 hectares of land and 3,354 at sea. Around its edges, private conservation filled the buffer: Lapa Rios holds roughly 1,000 acres of rainforest as a private reserve and wildlife corridor beside the park, and has planted more than 10,000 native trees in its secondary-growth areas (Lapa Rios).
What is it like now?
The Osa holds an estimated 2.5% of global biodiversity on a sliver of the planet's surface — scarlet macaws, all four Costa Rican monkey species, jaguars still crossing the corridors. Corcovado remains the Pacific coast's largest primary-forest tract, patrolled by SINAC's rangers.
Who does the work?
SINAC's park rangers hold Corcovado; the buffer lodges — Lapa Rios first among them — employ and train locally, betting the peninsula's economy on the forest staying up.
How do you visit Osa Peninsula?
Wake up over the canopy at Lapa Rios and walk into Corcovado with a local guide. The lodge's thousand acres exist because guests keep coming.
Wake up over the canopy at Lapa Rios
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