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57-512: The entirety of Cocos Island has been designated a Costa Rican National Park since 1978, and has no permanent inhabitants other than Costa Rican park rangers. As a result, it has been labelled as the world's largest uninhabited tropical island. Surrounded by deep waters with counter-currents , Cocos Island is admired by scuba divers for its populations of hammerhead sharks , rays , dolphins and other large marine species. The wet climate and oceanic qualities give Cocos an ecological character that

114-463: A Costa Rican National Park by means of an executive decree in 1978 and designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997. In 2002, the World Heritage Site designation was extended to include an expanded marine zone of 1,997 km (771 sq mi). In addition, it is included in the list of Wetlands of International Importance . In 2009, Cocos Island was short-listed as a candidate for

171-495: A complicated area geologists call the Cocos-Nazca spreading system. From the rise the plate is pushed eastward and pushed or dragged (perhaps both) under the less dense Caribbean plate , in the process called subduction . The subducted leading edge heats up and adds its water to the mantle above it. In the mantle layer called the asthenosphere , mantle rock melts to make magma , trapping superheated water under great pressure. As

228-636: A definite transform fault , yet they are regarded as distinct. After its separation from the Cocos plate, the Rivera plate started acting as an independent microplate. The devastating 1985 Mexico City earthquake and the 2017 Chiapas earthquake were results of the subduction of the Cocos plate beneath the North American plate . The devastating El Salvador earthquakes in January 2001 and February 2001 were generated by

285-569: A department of Costa Rica 's Ministry of Environment and Energy ( MINAE ). All told, Costa Rica's protected areas, including national parks, encompass more than 25% of the country's total land area. Many of these protected areas are national parks. Costa Rica's progressive policies on environmental protection and sustainable ecotourism in the National Parks System have been lauded as a model for other countries. The rainforests , tropical forests, marine areas and wetlands of Costa Rica are

342-527: A district, the island has the postal code of 60110. The island's 33 residents, all of them Costa Rican park rangers, were allowed to vote for the first time in Costa Rica's February 5, 2006, election . However, the rangers are not considered permanent residents of the district, therefore the census data considers the island to be uninhabited. Cocos Island has featured heavily in many tales of pirate lore and buried treasure . The first claims of treasure buried on

399-402: A judge with the local Puntarenas Court of Justice, obscurely allowed 22 poachers caught red-handed to escape the country. Also under highly suspicious and allegedly corrupt circumstances, District Attorney Michael Morales Molina stopped the auction for public benefit of confiscated goods immediately after the spokesman of the large illegal poaching ship Tiuna simply made the request. The island

456-489: A main concern. Growing local and worldwide demand for tuna, shark fin soup and other seafood is threatening the island's fragile ecosystems. The government of Costa Rica has been openly accused of passivity and even benefiting corruptly from illegal shark fin and other seafood trade to large markets, such as China and other Asian countries. The government has shown some willingness to protect the island's natural riches and prosecute poachers. However, efforts to effectively patrol

513-619: A result, to the northeast of the subducting edge lies the continuous arc of volcanos – also known as the Central America Volcanic Arc – stretching from Costa Rica to Guatemala , and a belt of earthquakes that extends farther north, into Mexico . The northern boundary of the Cocos plate is the Middle America Trench . The eastern boundary is a transform fault , the Panama Fracture Zone . The southern boundary

570-408: Is Cerro Iglesias, at 575.5 m (1,888 ft). In spite of its mountainous character, there are flatter areas between 200–260 m (660–850 ft) in elevation in the center of the island, which are said to be a transitional stage of the geomorphological cycle of V-shaped valleys. Cocos Island has a number of short rivers and streams that drain abundant rainfall into four bays, three of them on

627-657: Is a mid-oceanic ridge , the Galápagos Rise . The western boundary is another mid-ocean ridge, the East Pacific Rise . A hotspot under the Galápagos Islands lies along the Galápagos Rise. ( see Galápagos hotspot and Galápagos microplate ) The Rivera plate , north of the Cocos plate, is thought to have separated from the Cocos plate 5–10 million years ago. The boundary between the two plates appears to lack

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684-1006: Is also present, the whale shark ( Rhincodon typus ). In December 2017, a female tiger shark (a species that returned to the waters of Isla del Coco in 2012, after 30 years of not being seen in the area) killed New Yorker Rohina Bhandari while she was scuba diving in Manuelita in the Isla del Coco National Park. Other large marine animals include humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ), orcas ( Orcinus orca ), pilot whales ( Globicephala macrorhynchus ), bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops truncatus ) and sea lions ( Zalophus californianus ). There are also reptiles: hawksbill turtles ( Eretmochelys imbricata ), green turtles ( Chelonia mydas ) and olive ridley turtles ( Lepidochelys olivacea ). The island's largely unperturbed habitats are, nonetheless, under growing human pressure. Illegal poaching of large marine species in and around its protected waters has become

741-449: Is believed to have been uninhabited by humans prior to European discovery. However, there has been little archaeological investigation into oceanic eastern Pacific islands, including Cocos Island. This is due to the fragile environments on such islands, which for many years have been untouched by humans, and because these islands are at a considerable distance from islands that had Polynesian populations. Likewise, Indigenous Americans on

798-472: Is not shared with either the Galápagos Archipelago or any of the other islands (for example, Malpelo , Gorgona or Coiba ) in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Because of the unique ecology of the island and its surrounding waters, Cocos Island National Park became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. The island can only be reached by sea, which usually takes 36 to 48 hours. Cocos Island was declared

855-581: Is the only oceanic island in the eastern Pacific region with such rain forests and their characteristic types of flora and fauna. The cloud forests present at its higher elevations are also unique in the eastern Pacific. The island was never linked to a continent, so the flora and fauna arrived via long-distance dispersal from the Americas , and the island therefore has a high proportion of endemic species . The island has 235 known species of flowering plants , of which 70 are endemic. A good comprehensive study on

912-526: Is unclear what their findings were for Cocos Island. In his Historia general y natural de las Indias (1535, expanded in 1851 from his previously unpublished papers), Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés discusses the discovery of the island by his contemporary, Spanish navigator Juan de Cabezas (also known as Juan de Grado), in 1526. D. Lievre, Una isla desierta en el Pacífico; la isla del Coco in Los viajes de Cockburn y Lievre por Costa Rica (1962: 134) tells that

969-410: Is very limited; tourists and ship crew members are allowed ashore only with permission of island rangers, and are not permitted to camp, stay overnight or collect any flora, fauna or minerals from the island. Occasional amateur radio DXpeditions are allowed to visit. The island is also very popular in pirate lore. It is said that over 300 expeditions have searched for buried treasure there, such as

1026-679: The Caribbean plate . To the west it is bounded by the Pacific plate and to the south by the Nazca plate . The only land above water on the Cocos plate is Cocos Island , which is administered by Costa Rica and lies approximately 550 km (342 mi; 297 nmi) southwest of the Costa Rican mainland. The Cocos plate was created by sea floor spreading along the East Pacific Rise and the Cocos Ridge , specifically in

1083-704: The New7Wonders of Nature by the New7Wonders of the World Foundation, ranking second in the island category. Thanks to the great diversity of marine life in its waters, Cocos Island was named one of the best 10 scuba diving spots in the world by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors and a "must do" according to diving experts. Popular dive spots around the island are Bajo Alcyone (hammerhead sharks), Manuelina Garden (coral garden) and Dos Amigos Grande (natural underwater arch formation). For many,

1140-520: The Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America , named for Cocos Island , which rides upon it. The Cocos plate was created approximately 23 million years ago when the Farallon plate broke into two pieces, which also created the Nazca plate . The Cocos plate also broke into two pieces, creating the small Rivera plate . The Cocos plate is bounded to the northeast by the North American plate and

1197-513: The Costa Rican government named the German adventurer and treasure hunter August Gissler the first Governor of Cocos Island and allowed him to establish a short-lived colony there. On May 12, 1970, the insular territory of Cocos Island was incorporated administratively by means of Executive Decree No. 27, making it the eleventh district of Puntarenas canton of the Puntarenas Province . As

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1254-669: The Galápagos islands stretch 5 degrees north of the Equator. The island in modern times has been thickly overgrown with jungle. "That the island formerly merited its descriptive name, however, is apparent from the verbal accounts given to Captain Dampier by the contemporary Spanish discoverers. Dampier writes: 'The Island Cocos is so named by the Spaniards, because there are abundances of Coco-Nut Trees growing on it'...prehistoric planters must have found

1311-517: The Pacific, but rather off the coast of Venezuela in the Atlantic Ocean. Robinson's neighbouring Terra Firma is shown on the colour map of Joannes Jansson (Amsterdam) depicting the northeastern corner of South America , entitled Terra Firma et Novum Regnum Granatense et Popayan . It belongs to the early group of plates printed by Willem Blaeu from 1630 onwards. The property called Terra Firma

1368-671: The Spanish conquest and its consequences, these voyages ended and the tropical jungle recovered the land that had been laboriously cleared by early human hands. There is, however, no concrete archeological evidence of human habitation before European contact. The island has over 400 known species of insects, of which 65 (16%) are endemic. The greatest diversity is found among the Lepidoptera and Formicidae . Over 50 species of other arthropods have been described ( spiders , centipedes , millipedes , and isopods ). Two species of lizard are found on

1425-401: The age of the oldest rocks between 1.91 and 2.44 million years (Late Pliocene) and it is composed primarily of basalt , which is formed by cooling lava. The island is approximately rectangular in shape, measuring about 8 km × 3 km (5 mi × 2 mi) with a perimeter of around 23.3 km (14.5 mi). The landscape is mountainous and irregular; the highest point

1482-487: The back of its front cover which shows I. de Cocos right on the Equator. Frederik De Witt's Atlas, 1680 shows it similarly. The Hondius Broadside map of 1590 shows I. de Cocos at 2 degrees and 30 minutes north latitude, while in 1596 Theodore de Bry showed the Galápagos Islands near 6 degrees north of the Equator. Emanuel Bowen , in A Complete system of Geography , Volume II (London, 1747: 586), states that

1539-637: The coast up to 50 m (160 ft) elevation. Purple coral tree ( Erythrina fusca ), coconut palm ( Cocos nucifera ), and pond-apple ( Annona glabra ) are the predominant trees, with an understory of ferns, shrubs of the Rubiaceae and Solanaceae families, sedges and grasses, and herbaceous plants of the Leguminosae and Malvaceae families. The inland forests extend from 50 to 500 m (160 to 1,640 ft) elevation. "Palo de hierro" or huriki ( Sacoglottis holdridgei ), "avocado" ( Ocotea insularis ) and

1596-411: The endemic Cecropia pittieri are the most common canopy trees. The trees are festooned at all levels with epiphytic plants , including orchids , ferns, bromeliads and mosses. The understory includes sedges such as Hypolitrum amplum and various species of ferns and tree ferns , including Cyathea armata and Danaea media . The palm Euterpe precatoria is also common. Cloud forests are found at

1653-641: The expansion of the Galápagos Marine Reserve by 50%, adding 23,000 sq mi (60,000 km) to protect submarine mountains northeast of the islands as the Hermandad Marine Reserve . It will connect with the protected area around Cocos Island. Cocos Island is an oceanic island of both volcanic and tectonic origin. It is the only emergent island of the Cocos Plate , one of the minor tectonic plates . Potassium-argon dating established

1710-467: The fauna and flora of the isolated Clipperton Island and Malpelo ; we hardly know anything about Cocos Island, which seems to be in many respects quite different from the others, having a more tropical appearance." Cocos Island was annexed by Costa Rica in 1832 by decree No. 54 of the Constitutional Assembly of the newly independent country. Whalers stopped regularly at Cocos Island until

1767-448: The first document with the name "Isle de Coques" is a map painted on parchment , called that of Henry II , that appeared in 1542 during the reign of Francis I of France . The planisphere of Nicolas Desliens (1556, Dieppe) places this Ysle de Coques about one and a half degrees north of the Equator . Willem Blaeu 's Grand Atlas , originally published in 1662, has a colour world map on

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1824-540: The flora of the island is provided in the journal Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences . Additionally, 74 species of ferns and fern allies ( lycopodiophytes and pteridophytes ), 128 species of mosses and liverworts , 90 species of fungi and 41 species of slimemolds have been reported. Nevertheless, more exhaustive investigations are expected to reveal many more species. The island has three main plant communities. The coastal forests extend from

1881-427: The forest and were never recaptured. Hundreds of attempts to find treasure on the island have failed. Several early expeditions were mounted on the basis of claims by a man named Keating, who was supposed to have befriended Thompson. On one trip, Keating was said to have retrieved gold and jewels from the treasure. German adventurer August Gissler lived on the island for most of the period from 1889 until 1908, hunting

1938-437: The harbor as they were instructed, Thompson and his crew killed the viceroy's men and sailed to Cocos, where they allegedly buried the treasure. Shortly afterwards, they were apprehended by a Spanish warship. All of the crew except Thompson and his first mate were executed for piracy. The two said they would show the Spaniards where they had hidden the treasure in return for their lives, but after landing on Cocos, they escaped into

1995-479: The highest elevations, over 500 m (1,600 ft), where Melastoma spp. are predominant. The general vegetation of Cocos Island has greatly changed since the island was first named and described by Europeans. Captain Wafer, who visited the island in 1685 and whose name was given to the landing place, describes extensive coconut groves extending inland into the interior of the island. Thor Heyerdahl posited that it

2052-455: The hoard of Benito Bonito, the Treasure of Lima , and many others. Some small caches have been discovered, leading many to believe that the stories of vast pirate treasures are true, though the majority of searches have been unsuccessful. Treasure hunting is strictly prohibited by the Costa Rican government and permits are not being issued. In 2022 Ecuadorean President Guillermo Lasso announced

2109-541: The island came from a woman named Mary Welch, who claimed that 350 tons of gold (about $ 16 billion in today's money) raided from Spanish galleons had been buried on the island by Captain Bennett Graham , a naval officer who had become a pirate in 1818. She had been a member of a pirate crew led by Captain Graham, and was transported to an Australian penal colony for her crimes. She possessed a chart showing where Graham's treasure

2166-510: The island, including three endemics: the Cocos cuckoo ( Coccyzus ferrugineus ), Cocos flycatcher ( Nesotriccus ridgwayi ) and Cocos finch ( Pinaroloxias inornata ), with the latter two being monotypic in their respective genera. The island has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International . The island has no native land mammal species, but humans have introduced five: pigs, deer, goats, cats, and rats. Because they harm

2223-589: The island, the Cocos Island anole ( Anolis townsendi ) and the Pacific least gecko ( Sphaerodactylus pacificus ); both are endemic. No amphibians have been reported. Nearly 90 bird species have been reported. The island and neighboring rocks are home to large nesting colonies of migratory seabirds , including the brown booby ( Sula leucogaster ), red-footed booby ( Sula sula ), great frigatebird ( Fregata minor ), white tern ( Gygis alba ) and brown noddy ( Anous stolidus ). Seven species of land birds inhabit

2280-571: The island’s high rainfall on the steep slopes were it not for the dense forest coverage. The climate of Cocos Island is mostly determined by the latitudinal movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone , which creates cloudiness and precipitation that is constant throughout the year. This makes the climate humid and tropical with an average annual temperature of 26.6 °C (79.9 °F) and an average annual rainfall of over 7,000 mm (276 in). Rainfall remains high throughout

2337-649: The local ecosystems by either foraging native flora or preying on native fauna, they are the subject of control efforts. The rich coral reef, volcanic tunnels, caves, massifs and deeper waters surrounding Cocos Island are home to more than 30 species of coral, 60 species of crustaceans, 600 species of molluscs and over 300 species of fish. These include large populations of yellowfin tuna ( Thunnus albacares ), giant mantas ( Manta birostris ), sailfish ( Istiophorus platypterus ) and sharks , such as whitetip reef shark ( Triaenodon obesus ) and scalloped hammerhead shark ( Sphyrna lewini ). The largest of all species of fish

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2394-466: The location of Cocos Island worthy of the vast amount of labor spent in clearing the natural jungle for the planting of coconuts...make it an ideal port of call for aboriginal merchants trafficking the open sea off Panama. With the notable exception of the Galápagos Islands, there was a lack of scientific research into oceanic eastern Pacific islands prior to the 20th century. Publication The American Naturalist stated in 1891, "we know nothing at all about

2451-430: The main attractions are the large pelagic fish species, which are very abundant in this unique meeting point between deep and shallow waters. The largest schools of hammerhead sharks in the world are consistently reported there. Encounters with dozens if not hundreds of these and other large animals are nearly certain in every dive. Smaller and colorful species are also abundant in one of the most extensive coral reefs in

2508-441: The mid-19th century, when inexpensive kerosene started to replace whale oil for lighting. In October 1863, the ship Adelante marooned 426 Tongan former slaves on the island when it was discovered that they had contracted smallpox and were a danger to her crew. By the time the vessel Tumbes arrived to rescue them one month later, only 38 survivors were found, the rest having perished from smallpox (see ʻAta ). In 1897,

2565-608: The north side (Wafer, Chatham and Weston). The largest rivers are the Genio and the Pittier, which drain their water into Wafer Bay. Sheer, 90-metre (300 ft) cliffs ring much of the island, preventing convenient access except at a few beaches; the easiest point of entry is at Chatham Bay. The mountainous landscape and the tropical climate combine to create over 200 waterfalls throughout the island. The island’s soils are classified as entisols , which are highly acidic and would be easily eroded by

2622-494: The southeastern Pacific. Famous oceanographer Jacques Cousteau visited the island several times and in 1994 called it "the most beautiful island in the world". Such accolades have highlighted the urgent need to protect Cocos Island and its surrounding waters from illegal large-scale fishing, poaching and other threats . The only persons allowed to live on Cocos Island are Costa Rican park rangers, who have established two encampments, including one at English Bay. Access by civilians

2679-491: The southern Osa Peninsula is the internationally renowned Corcovado National Park , which preserves a remnant of sizeable lowland tropical rainforest that is unique in the world. Manuel Antonio National Park was listed by Forbes in 2011 among the world's 12 most beautiful national parks. The Camino de Costa Rica is a 280 km long hiking trail across Costa Rica . It runs from the Atlantic Ocean (Caribbean coast),

2736-703: The southernmost part of the Tortuguero Canals, up the mountain and through indigenous territory near the Barbilla National Park and through valleys and mountain ranges of the central region of the country, just south of the Turrialba and Irazu Volcanos and through the Los Santos coffee region down to the Pacific coast in Quepos . Cocos Plate The Cocos plate is a young oceanic tectonic plate beneath

2793-476: The subject of many university and scientific organization studies. The enrichment of the world's knowledge of these important habitats is an invaluable contribution from the National Parks System of Costa Rica. The Cordillera de Talamanca is home to an impressive collection of national parks and other preserved areas, including the La Amistad International Park , which extends into Panamá . On

2850-419: The treasure, but only found a few gold coins. British Antarctic explorer Aeneas Mackintosh launched a treasure-hunting expedition to Cocos in 1910, without success. The book Desert Island proposed the highly detailed theory that Daniel Defoe used the Isla del Coco as an accurate model for his descriptions of the island inhabited by the marooned Robinson Crusoe . However, Defoe placed Crusoe's island not in

2907-570: The waters and enforce environmental laws face big financial and bureaucratic difficulties, as well as being prone to the corruption of local, national and international authorities. Recent events show that large-scale illegal poaching keeps happening. Despite initial hope in stopping and charging poachers, who have been caught with abundant evidence, they have often been quickly released under suspicious circumstances. Also, efforts to raise funds for protection have been dwarfed. Marvin Orlando Cerdas,

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2964-559: The west coast of the continent were not known to inhabit any remote eastern Pacific islands. In 2008, Cocos Island, the Desventuradas Islands , Galápagos Islands and Juan Fernández Islands (all uninhabited when discovered by Europeans) were surveyed by archaeologists from the Australian National University . Their investigation found that the Galápagos Islands may have been visited by a Polynesian vessel, but it

3021-476: The year, although lowers somewhat from January through March and again during late September and October. Numerous oceanic currents from the central Pacific Ocean , particularly the North Equatorial Countercurrent , converge on the island and also have an important influence. The island has a tropical rainforest climate ( Köppen : Af). Cocos Island is home to dense tropical moist forests . It

3078-517: Was never retrieved. Perhaps the best-known of the treasure legends tied to the island is that of the fabled Treasure of Lima . In 1820, with the army of José de San Martín approaching Lima , Viceroy José de la Serna is supposed to have entrusted treasure from the city to British trader Captain William Thompson for safekeeping until the Spaniards could secure the country. Instead of waiting in

3135-526: Was supposed to be hidden. On her release, she returned to the island with an expedition but had no success in finding anything, as the points of reference in the chart had disappeared. Another pirate supposed to have buried treasure on the island was the Portuguese Benito Bonito , who began terrorizing the west coast of the Americas around 1818. Though Bonito was hunted down and executed, his treasure

3192-516: Was the Isthmus of Darien . The stories of pirates and buried treasure associated with the island are reputed to have been the inspiration for the novel Treasure Island , by Robert Louis Stevenson . National Parks of Costa Rica National Parks of Costa Rica [REDACTED] Manuel Antonio National Park In 2023 thirty National Parks of Costa Rica are managed under the umbrella of SINAC (Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservacion),

3249-472: Was very unlikely that these groves developed naturally, and that pre-European man must once have cleared considerable areas in the ravine bottoms and interior plateaus and ridges, utilizing the clearings for coconut plantations of substantial extent. Heyerdahl theorized that these plantations were used to provide fresh liquid and food for pre-Columbian voyages (made by balsa rafts using guara navigation) between Guatemala and northwestern South America. After

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