Payne's Creek National Park is a

nature 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 ...

in the

Toledo District Toledo District is the southernmost district in Belize, and Punta Gorda is the District capital. It is the second most developed region in the country (according to the Human Development Index (HDI)). The district has a diverse topography whic ...

of southern

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 ...

. The park encompasses of land including the dominant

broadleaf forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

as well as

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

areas.

Natural history

This national park, which stretches along the lower reaches of the Monkey River, was previously disturbed by banana farming and

slash-and-burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed veget ...

agricultural practices; however, in 2007 a verdant broadleaf secondary forest provides habitat for a diverse

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

flora and fauna. Black

howler monkey Howler monkeys (genus ''Alouatta'', monotypic in subfamily Alouattinae) are the most widespread primate genus in the Neotropics and are among the largest of the platyrrhines along with the muriquis (''Brachyteles''), the spider monkeys (''Atele ...

troops are abundant, each troop maintaining a home range of in this forest(Lumina, 2006).

Maya sites

At least four

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 popul ...

sites have been discovered in Payne's Creek National Park to date. Included are a site now under water, with rare preserved wooden artifacts and portions of wooden buildings. The excavations of submerged Mayan

saltworks A saltern is an area or installation for making salt. Salterns include modern salt-making works (saltworks), as well as hypersaline waters that usually contain high concentrations of halophilic microorganisms, primarily haloarchaea but also othe ...

at the Payne's Creek National Park, dating back to 300–900 AD, highlight the usage of stone tools for cutting meat or fish, salting and preserving them within wooden kitchens, in order to be transported to inland markets.

Bibliography

*Toledo Institut
Payne's Creek National Park, Belize
*Lumina Tech, "Hydrology and ecology of the Monkey River watershed, southern Belize", 2006

References

National parks of Belize Toledo District Nature conservation in Belize {{NorthAm-protected-area-stub