Huatulco

Huatulco National Park was decreed on 24 July 1998, during the presidency of Ernesto Zedillo, in the municipality of Santa María Huatulco, on the coast of Oaxaca. It has been administered by CONANP since 5 June 2000 and has a management programme published in the Official Journal of the Federation on 2 December 2002. Its area is 11,890.98 hectares, divided into 6,374.98 on land and 5,516 at sea.

The landscape is the foothills of the Sierra Madre del Sur sliding towards the sea in a string of nine bays, with tropical dry deciduous forest, patches of mangrove, a seasonal wetland, coastal dunes and beaches. Offshore, the coral and rock reefs are the northernmost in the Mexican Pacific and hold a notable marine biodiversity. The park brings together all five wetland types described by the Ramsar Convention — estuarine, marine, lacustrine, riverine and palustrine — and it was designated a Ramsar site in 2003.

The declaration protected more than 413 plant species, 130 mammals, 291 birds, some 72 reptiles and some 15 amphibians. Humpback whales and orcas are regular in the park's waters, and the beaches receive marine turtle nesting. On 26 October 2006 UNESCO designated the municipality of Santa María Huatulco together with the national park as the Huatulco Biosphere Reserve, bringing them into the World Network of the Man and the Biosphere programme. The park sits within the Bahías de Huatulco tourist destination, which makes managing visitor numbers and hotel development its main conservation challenge.