Maya Forest Explained

Maya Forest
Native Name:Selva maya
Native Lang:es
Native Name2:Otoch k'aaxg
Native Lang2:myn
Map:Mesoamerica
Map Alt:Location of the Maya Forest in eastern Mesoamerica
Label:Maya Forest
Coordinates:17.8156°N -89.1519°Wb
Country:Belize, northern Guatemala, southeastern Mexicoa
Area:ca c
> c
Classification Wwf:Petén–Veracruz moist forestsd
Species:Breadnut, sapodilla, cocoa, avocados, peppers, wild mamey, mylady, cohune, gumbolimbo, give-and-take, monkey apple, cabbage bark, dogwood, canistel, zapotillo, bayleaf, john crow redwood, hog plum, mahogany, Mayflower, guinep, walking lady, druken Baymane
Fauna:Jaguar, scarlet macaw, Baird's tapir, Yucatan black howler monkey, white-lipped peccary, Hickatee turtle, hawksbill turtle, keel-billed toucan, harpy eagle, Yucatan brown brocket, ocellated turkey, Morelet's crocodilef
Embedded:a–g Cf

The Maya Forest is a tropical moist broadleaf forest that covers much of the Yucatan Peninsula, thereby encompassing Belize, northern Guatemala, and southeastern Mexico. It is deemed the second largest tropical rainforest in the Americas, after the Amazon, with an area of circa 15 million hectares (150,000 km2), of which at least 3 million (30,000 km2) lie within protected areas.

Extent

The Maya Forest is considered 'the [second] largest remaining tropical rainforest in the Americas,' after the Amazon. It is widely deemed to cover much of the Yucatan Peninsula, thereby encompassing Belize, northern Guatemala, and southeastern Mexico, and stretching across protected and unprotected areas, and Crown (ie public) and private lands. This coincides with the original definition of the Forest as developed in 1995 for internationally-coordinated conservation efforts, namely, the contiguous tropical rainforest which housed the Classic Maya civilisation within the Maya Lowlands. Some literature, however, the Forest's bounds to only contiguous rainforest within protected areas (eg the Maya Biosphere Reserve and abutting protected areas). Other literature, though, the Forest's bounds beyond the Peninsula, suggesting it stretches along the Gulf of Mexico littoral beyond the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the west, and along the Bay of Honduras littoral along northern Honduras to the east.

History

Pre-Columbian

The Maya Forest is thought to have come into being after the Last Glacial Maximum circa 20,000 years ago. Prior to such event, an arid climate is thought to have predominated in the Maya Lowlands, leading to dry, open savannahs, rather than a tropical rainforest.

The earliest Palaeoindian settlers of the former Maya Lowlands would have encountered a burgeoning Maya Forest, and employed it to hunt and gather food, thereby leaving it largely intact. Their successors, the Maya, were once thought to have similarly kept the Forest in a largely virginal state, but scholarly consensus has flipped on this point. It is now thought that Preclassic or Classic Maya residents deforested large tracts of the Forest for residential and agricultural use, with recovery possible only after the Classic Maya Collapse.

Columbian

The Maya's successors, the Spanish in Guatemala and Mexico, and the Baymen in Belize, took to logging the Forest since their arrival during the conquest of Yucatan and later settlement of Belize and conquest of Peten. Though centuries of timber extraction may not have decimated the Forest, they did alter it, for instance, via selective extraction of logwood and mahogany.

Modern conservation efforts were begun in 1817 with the passage of the Crown Lands Ordinance, which regulated logging in the southeastern portion of the Forest, within British Honduran Crown lands. The earliest protected areas within the Forest are believed to have been the Silk Grass or Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserves, gazetted in 1920, both in the southeastern portion of the Forest, within British Honduras. Conservation efforts were not coordinated across state lines, however, until 1995, when a workshop to such end was held at the Colegio de la Frontera Sur in Campeche, Mexico, by the US Man and Biosphere Programme.

Presently, forest fires, illegal logging, illicit trafficking of flora and fauna, and intensive agriculture are thought to pose 'great threats' to the Forest. A recent study, for instance, found that twenty-first century deforestation has fragmented the Forest, thereby undermining its contiguity. It has been noted, furthermore, that mitigating said threats has proven challenging, given frosty diplomatic relations between Forest-holding states, most especially Belize and Guatemala.

Geography

Physical

The Forest is a contiguous maze of woods with pockets of savannahs, wetlands, and coastal mangrove stands.

Human

As of the 2010s, the Forest houses a population of approximately 588,000 to 600,000 people in non-protected areas, including Maya, Garifuna, mestizo, and Mennonite residents. The Forest comprises various protected and unprotected tracts of woods, and itself constitutes the northernmost part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.

Protected areas of the Maya Forest.
Name Country Established data-sort-type=number Size Notes
Belize Maya Forest Belize 2021 Cf
Belize 1995 Cf
Belize Cf
Maya Golden LandscapeBelize Cf
Belize 1930s Cf
Belize 1944 Cf
Maya BiosphereGuatemala Cf
Southern Peten*Guatemala Cf
Mexico Cf
Balam Kú Mexico Cf
Balam Kin Mexico Cf
Mexico Cf
Bala’an K’aax Mexico Cf
Mexico 1978 Cf

Ecology

The Maya Forest comprises more than 20 ecosystems.

It is home to a wide range of animals, including jaguars, monkeys, parrots, tapirs, snakes and crocodiles.

Legacy

The Forest has been deemed 'one of the most important ecological systems globally[, it being] considered the most extensive tropical forest in Mesoamerica[, with] a surface of protected areas that exceeds four million hectares [40,000 sq km].'

See also

Notes and references

Full citations

  1. Bray. David Barton. Duran. Elvira. Ramos. Victor Hugo. Mas. Jean-Francois. Velazquez. Alejandro. McNab. Roan Balas. Barry. Deborah. Radachowsky. Jeremy. 2008. Tropical Deforestation, Community Forests, and Protected Areas in the Maya Forest. Ecology and Society. 13. 2. art. no. 56. 17083087.
  2. Book: Bridgewater. Samuel. 2012. A Natural History of Belize. Corrie Herring Hooks Series no. 52. University of Texas Press; Natural History Museum. Austin, TX; London. 10.7560/726710. 9780292726710.
  3. Cuba. Nicholas. Sauls. Laura A.. Bebbington. Anthony J.. Bebbington. Denise H.. Chicchon. Avecita. Marimón. Pilar D.. Diaz. Oscar. Hecht. Susanna. Kandel. Susan. Osborne. Tracey. Ray. Rebecca. Rivera. Madelyn. Rogan. John. Zalles. Viviana. 2022. Emerging hot spot analysis to indicate forest conservation priorities and efficacy on regional to continental scales: a study of forest change in Selva Maya 2000–2020. Environmental Research Communications. 4. 7. art. no. 071004. 10.1088/2515-7620/ac82de. free.
  4. Ford. Anabel. Nigh. Ronald. 2009. Origins of the Maya Forest Garden: Maya Resource Management. Journal of Ethnobiology. 29. 2. 213-236. 10.2993/0278-0771-29.2.213. free.
  5. Web site: Greater Belize Maya Forest. GC. 2021. Global Conservation. Global Conservation. San Francisco, CA. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20230607164918/https://globalconservation.org/projects/greater-belize-maya-forest/. 7 June 2023.
  6. Book: Hutson. Scott R.. Ardren. Traci. 2020. The Maya World. Routledge Worlds. Routledge. London and New York. 1159169707. 9781351029582.
  7. Laako. Hanna. Pliego Alvarado. Esmeralda. Ramos Muñoz. Dora. Marquez. Beula. 2022. Transboundary conservation and nature states in the Maya Forest: International Relations, challenged. Globalizations. 19. 8. 1288-1310. 10.1080/14747731.2022.2062844. free.
  8. Web site: The Tropical Forest. SM. 2017a. Selva Maya. Selva Maya Programme. Guatemala City. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20230503162311/https://selvamaya.info/en/mayan-rainforest/the-selva/. 3 May 2023.
  9. Web site: Protected Areas. SM. 2017b. Selva Maya. Selva Maya Programme. Guatemala City. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20230806232729/https://selvamaya.info/en/mayan-rainforest/protected-areas/. 6 August 2023.
  10. Web site: Maya Forest. TNC. 2020. The Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy . Arlington, VA. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20230330235928/https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/latin-america/mexico/maya-forest/. 30 March 2023.
  11. Web site: Selva Maya. WCF. 2019. The 5 Great Forests Initiative. Wildlife Conservation Society. Bronx, NY. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20230726192954/https://programs.wcs.org/5greatforests/en-us/Wild-Places/Selva-Maya. 26 July 2023.
  12. Web site: Maya Forest. WWF. 2022. WWF. World Wide Fund For Nature. Gland, Switzerland. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20230328171536/https://www.wwfca.org/en/landscapes/maya_forest/. 28 March 2023.

External links