El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve is a
biosphere reserve
A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or o ...
in southern
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. It is in the
Sierra Madre de Chiapas
The Sierra Madre de Chiapas is a major mountain range in Central America. It crosses El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras. The Sierra Madre de Chiapas is part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges that consists of an almos ...
in southern
Chiapas
Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...
.
Geography
El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve has an area of 1191.77 km
2 in the
Sierra Madre de Chiapas
The Sierra Madre de Chiapas is a major mountain range in Central America. It crosses El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras. The Sierra Madre de Chiapas is part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges that consists of an almos ...
, a mountain range that extends roughly east–west parallel to the
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
coast of Mexico and Guatemala.
To the west El Triunfo borders the
a
natural resources protection area that protects the northern slope of the Sierra. El Triunfo, the Zona de Protección Forestal, and
La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve
La Sepultura is a biosphere reserve in southern Mexico. It protects a portion of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas range in the state of Chiapas.
Geography
La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve covers the western end of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas. The Zona d ...
further to the west form a continuous protected corridor along the western Sierra.
[
]
Flora and fauna
El Triunfo is home to a range of plant communities, including tropical dry forest, foothill and montane evergreen moist forest, and pine–oak forest. 977 species of plants have been recorded in the reserve.["El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, Mexico". UNESCO, October 2018. Accessed 1 October 2021]
/ref>
El Triunfo is notable for its cloud forests, which occur in mountain areas with high year-round rainfall. El Triunfo includes some of the largest remaining cloud forests in Mexico. El Triunfo's cloud forests are biodiversity, biodiverse, with many plant and animal species and outstanding diversity of tree species. The cloud forests' vegetation and soils absorb the mountains' high rainfall, releasing it slowly into the rivers that drain from the mountains to the Pacific coastal plain to the south and the Chiapas Depression to the north, or releasing it back into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration (ET) is the combined processes by which water moves from the earth’s surface into the atmosphere. It covers both water evaporation (movement of water to the air directly from soil, canopies, and water bodies) and transpi ...
to fall again as rain.[
The reserve is home to 548 species of terrestrial vertebrates, 45% of the total number of species recorded for Chiapas and 22% of the total for Mexico. 112 of those are mammals, representing 56% of the mammal species in Chiapas and 23% of those in Mexico. 63 reptile species are native to the reserve, including 32% of the known species in Chiapas and 9% of the total for Mexico. The reserve has 22 species of amphibians, 23% of the total recorded in Chiapas and 7.5% of those for the Mexico as a whole.][
588 species of daytime ]Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera ( ) is an order (biology), order of insects that includes butterfly, butterflies and moths (both are called lepidopterans). About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 Family (biology), families and 46 Taxonomic r ...
(butterflies and moths) have been recorded in the reserve, 49% of the total identified in Chiapas.[
]
People
Residents of the reserve's buffer zone mostly make a living by growing corn, beans, and other crops for community use and coffee as a cash crop.[
]
History
In 1972 this area was declared a state park,[ In 1993 ]UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
declared El Triunfo an international biosphere reserve, with an area of 1191.77 km2.[UNEP-WCMC (2021). Protected Area Profile for El Triunfo from the World Database of Protected Areas. Accessed 1 October 2021]
/ref>
References
{{reflist
Biosphere reserves of Mexico
Protected areas of Chiapas
Sierra Madre de Chiapas
Important Bird Areas of Mexico
Central American pine–oak forests