Cusuco National Park is a national park in Honduras. It was established on 1 January 1959 and covers an area of . Cusuco National Park is a protected area in the Merendon mountains of northwest Honduras. The park ranges from just above sea level in the west to in the middle. The park comprises a core zone surrounded by a buffer zone. Cusuco encompasses several major habitats, including semi-arid pine forest, moist pine forest, moist broadleaf forest and

dwarf forest Dwarf forest, elfin forest, or pygmy forest is an uncommon ecosystem featuring miniature trees, inhabited by small species of fauna such as rodents and lizards. They are usually located at high elevations, under conditions of sufficient air humi ...

(''bosque enano'') at elevations above . The park is part of the Meso-American biodiversity hotspot (Conservation International 2006), a region characterised by exceptional species richness. Cusuco also has great diversity of habitats and high beta diversity in many groups due to the large elevational gradients in the park. Cusuco supports exceptional biodiversity. Some of the key features of the park include the globally threatened taxa which the park protects - especially amphibians (table 1), Baird's tapir, the assemblage of montane forest specialist birds, jewel scarab beetles, and the globally rare ''bosque enano'' (dwarf forest) habitat, which is characterised by '' Randia brachysiphon''. Cusuco is recognised as a

Key Biodiversity Area The Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) approach helps to identify and designate areas of international importance in terms of biodiversity conservation using globally standardised criteria. KBAs extend the Important Bird Area (IBA) concept to other taxon ...

(KBA) due to the overlapping ranges of several globally threatened amphibian species. The integrity of the ecosystem is threatened by land cover change and unsustainable land management practices – particularly conversion of forest to coffee plantations - by human population growth and infrastructure intensification, overexploitation of large mammals, the amphibian disease

chytridiomycosis Chytridiomycosis ( ) is an infectious disease in amphibians, caused by the chytrid fungi '' Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis'' and '' Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans''. Chytridiomycosis has been linked to dramatic population declines or extinc ...

, and climate change. There is a visitors' center at .

References

{{authority control National parks of Honduras Protected areas established in 1959 Central American Atlantic moist forests