The Maya Forest is a

tropical moist broadleaf forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat (ecology), habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally foun ...

that covers much of the Yucatan Peninsula, thereby encompassing

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...

, northern

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

, and southeastern

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 deemed the second largest tropical rainforest in the Americas, after the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

, 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 econdlargest remaining tropical rainforest in the Americas,' after the

. 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 The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, archit ...

within the

Maya Lowlands The Maya or Mayan Lowlands are the largest of three common first-order sub-divisions of the Mayan Region of Mesoamerica. Extent The Mayan Lowlands are restricted by the Gulf of Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Ma ...

. Some literature, however, the Forest's bounds to only contiguous rainforest within protected areas (eg the

Maya Biosphere Reserve The Maya Biosphere Reserve ( es, Reserva de la Biosfera Maya) is a nature reserve in Guatemala managed by Guatemala's National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP). The Maya Biosphere Reserve covers an area of 21,602 km², one-fifth of the c ...

and abutting protected areas). Other literature, though, the Forest's bounds beyond the Peninsula, suggesting it stretches along the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

littoral beyond the

Isthmus of Tehuantepec The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as the Te ...

to the west, and along the

Bay of Honduras The Gulf or Bay of Honduras is a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea, indenting the coasts of Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. From north to south, it runs for approximately 200 km (125 miles) from Dangriga, Belize, to La Ceiba, Honduras. ...

littoral along northern

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

to the east.

History

The Maya Forest Transboundary Conservation Complex

Pre-Columbian

The Maya Forest is thought to have come into being after the

Last Glacial Maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Late Glacial Maximum, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent. Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Eur ...

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 In archaeology, the classic Maya collapse is the decline of the Classic Maya civilization and the abandonment of Maya cities in the southern Maya lowlands of Mesoamerica between the 7th and 9th centuries. At Ceibal, the Preclassic Maya e ...

Columbian

The Maya's successors, the Spanish in Guatemala and Mexico, and the

Baymen The Baymen were the earliest European settlers along the Bay of Honduras in what eventually became the colony of British Honduras (modern-day Belize). Settlement The first Baymen settled in the Belize City area in the 1630s. They were buccane ...

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 ''Haematoxylum campechianum'' (blackwood, bloodwood tree, bluewood, campeachy tree, campeachy wood, campeche logwood, campeche wood, Jamaica wood, logwood or logwood tree) is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is na ...

and

mahogany Mahogany is a straight-grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Unive ...

. 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 Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

Garifuna The Garifuna people ( or ; pl. Garínagu in Garifuna) are a people of mixed free African and indigenous American ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language, and Vincentian ...

mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also r ...

, and Mennonite residents. The Forest comprises various protected and unprotected tracts of woods, and itself constitutes the northernmost part of the

Mesoamerican Biological Corridor The Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC) is a region that consists of Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and some southern states of Mexico. The area acts as a natural land bridge from South America to North ...

Ecology

The Forest comprises more than 20 ecosystems.

Legacy

The Forest has been deemed 'one of the most important ecological systems globally it beingconsidered the most extensive tropical forest in

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

witha surface of protected areas that exceeds four million hectares 0,000 sq km'

Notes and references

Explanatory footnotes

Short citations

Full citations

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External links

Selva Maya Programme
official website of the GIZ-funded Belize–Guatemala–Mexico initiative to protect the Maya Forest, established 2000. Ecoregions of North America Natural history of Belize Natural history of Guatemala Natural history of Mexico Geography of Belize Geography of Guatemala Geography of Mexico Neotropical ecoregions Rainforests Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests