Cahuita

Declared in 1970 after pressure from the local Afro-Caribbean community of Cahuita, who saw their traditional access to the beach and the reef threatened by the creation of an externally managed park, it adopted a pioneering model of entry by voluntary donation instead of a fixed fee, run partly by the community itself, which continues today as a much-cited example of Costa Rican community tourism. It also protects one of the last relatively healthy coral reefs on the Costa Rican Caribbean.