Bosawás Biosphere Reserve
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The Bosawas Biosphere Reserve in the northern part of Nicaragua is a hilly tropical forest designated in 1997 as a UNESCO biosphere reserve. At over 2 million hectares (1.8 million acres) in size, the reserve comprises about 7% of the nation's total land area making it the second largest rainforest in America, after the Amazon in Brazil.[1] Bosawas is largely unexplored, and is extremely rich in biodiversity.
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[edit] Etymology
The name is derived from three natural features: the Bocay River, Mount Saslaya and the Waspuk River. It includes all of Nicaragua's Saslaya National Park. The Isabella Mountains cross the reserve area, and the Coco River (Rio Coco) forms the northern border, the political border with Honduras.
About 130,000 inhabitants practice subsistence farming within the boundaries, about 35,000 of them indigenous Miskito and Mayangna groups.
