Coiba Island is one of Panama's most unique offerings, kin to the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and Costa Rica's Cocos Island. Its stunning beauty make it a delight for divers, tourists and scientists, all eager to discovery Coiba's living bounty.
Situated in the province of Veraguas, just 12 miles south of the Pacific mainland in the Gulf of Chiriqui, Coiba is the largest island in the Central Pacific. It is both a national park and a World Heritage Site, and home to a bewildering variety of birds, animals, and marine species found nowhere else in the world. A treasure trove of pristine biodiversity, Coiba harbors a dark past whose faded remnants still stand today.
Coiba's History
Coiba was once home to the Cacique Indians ('caciques' is a generic term, meaning local boss or ruler), until the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s. Several versions of events exist, including tales by Vasco de Nuñez Balboa, the famed Spanish explorer of the region, detailing his friendship and trade with the local chief Caeta. Accounts by the Italian historian Peter Martyr D'Anghiera in the 16th century, however, describe how the Caciques were forced to furnish provisions for the expeditions led by Balboa, decimating their food stores. In any event, the Caciques, once the ruling clan on the island, were quickly conquered and subjugated.
Coiba remained largely unsettled and undeveloped for several centuries until 1918, when its very name struck fear into the hearts of Panamanians as the site of one of the country's harshest penal colonies. The prison island gained a reputation for brutality, housing political dissidents and the most violent of the country's criminals. The last of the prisoners were finally removed in 2004, after protests from human rights groups demanded the island prison be shut down.
Little remains of the former penal colony, but its existence proved to be beneficial to the island - its fearsome reputation helped to preserve the island's pristine condition, which remains almost completely undeveloped outside the bounds of the prison camp.
Natural Wonders
Once part of the mainland, rising sea levels separated Coiba Island from the rest of Panama roughly 15,000 years ago. Despite its relatively short isolation, many plant and animal species have evolved new and distinct forms on the island, making them unique in the world. Endemic species include the Coiba Island Howler Monkey, the Coiba Agouti (a small rodent) and the Coiba Spinetail bird.
The island is also home to many plant and animal species that have largely vanished from the mainland, such as crested eagles, scarlet macaws, wpider monkeys, and the Yellow-billed Cotinga. Many of the islands inhabitants make their home in Coiba's red, white and black mangroves swamps, one of the most diverse mangrove systems in the region. Scientists estimate about 75 to 80% of the island is covered in forest, much of it primary moist, tropical forest. Its pristine condition and incredible biodiversity have made it an ideal natural laboratory for scientists, who have only just begun to catalog its unique marine and terrestrial treasures.
The protection of the Gulf of Chiriqui gives Coiba and its surroundings an extraordinarily stable climate, as well as shelter from battering winds and storms.. Because it is not vulnerable to the fluctuations El Niño and La Niña or the temperature oscillation of ocean currents, the water temperature varies little from about 80 degrees Fahrenheit year-round, which has allowed a great number of marine species, especially corals, to flourish.
The waters around Coiba are extraordinary for a variety of reasons. The stable temperature provides for abundant soft and hard coral reefs; these and many volcanic seamounts create rich marine habitats, feeding and cleaning stations for numerous marine mammals, reptiles and fish. Coiba also borders an outcropping Indian Ocean current, which brings in many species not usually seen in the Eastern Pacific.
Brightly-hued tropical fish dart in among the coral mounds, while moray eels peer menacingly from the safety of their nooks. Thick schools of barracuda, rainbow chub and jack stir the island waters, while shy sea-horses and octopus can only be spotted by the patient, keen eye. Many sea-turtles can be seen swimming lazily by, and big mammals such as sperm and humpback whales can be found mating or calving in the shelter of the Chiriqui Gulf.
Orcas and pilot whales are also frequent visitors; a variety of rays wing their way through gentle waters, including giant manta, spotted eagle, devil and mobola rays. Several species of shark, among them the hammerhead, whale shark, Galapagos, white and black tips, circle the depths in search of prey, or a quiet corner to rest.
According to UNESCO, the waters around Coiba Island harbour no fewer than 760 species of marine fish, 33 species of shark, and 20 species of cetaceans. It is this truly dizzying variety of marine life that has Coiba emerging as one of the most sought-out dive sites in the world.
National and Global Treasure
Coiba Island is the largest of a group of 38 islands off Panama's southwestern coast in the Gulf of Chiriqui. In 1991, the Panamanian government granted these islands and their surrounding waters status as a National Park covering more than 430,000 acres, making it one of the largest marine parks in the world.
In 2005, the United Nations declared Coiba Island a UNESCO World Heritage site, because of its rich biodiversity, unusual marine environment and largely intact condition.
With the increased presence of international fishing fleets, including shrimp trawlers and long-line fishing, Coiba has come under pressure, with shark and turtle populations under the greatest threat. Since the dismantling of the penal colony, there are also concerns the island itself will be vulnerable to poaching and illegal logging.
Several groups have come together to develop a management plan to protect Coiba's unique environment, including the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama's Ministry of the Environment, Conservation International, the United Nations Foundation and UNESCO. Coiba Island is part of the Eastern Pacific Marine Conservation Corridor, a huge, marine highway linking the Galapagos Islands, the Cocos Islands in Costa Rica, and Colombia's Mapelo and Gorgona Islands. The corridor is the result of an international cooperation effort to protect, conserve and manage one of the region's most precious marine thoroughfares for migratory species.
Useful Links
Coiba National Park
Coalition for Coiba
United Nations Environment Program: World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Coiba Island
UNESCO: Coiba Island Fact Sheet
Marviva: Fact Sheets on Coiba Island and the Eastern Pacific Marine Corridor (Flash only)
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute: Coiba's Liquid Jungle Laboratory
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute: Coiba Management Plan
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