BELIZE:
Secure Critical Jaguar
Habitat in the Maya Forest
KEY SPECIES: CENTRAL AMERICAN RIVER TURTLE (CR), YELLOW-HEADED AMAZON (EN), YUCATAN BLACK HOWLER MONKEY (EN), BAIRD’S TAPIR (EN), GEOFFROY’S SPIDER MONKEY (EN), PIGEONPUM (EN)
PROJECT AT A GLANCE
The Maya Forest of Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico is the second largest intact rainforest in the Americas, after the Amazon. It’s also one of the most important places on Earth for mammal conservation, with the region’s highest density of jaguars. It stores billions of tons of carbon and shelters priceless archaeological sites.
Rainforest Trust is part of an extraordinary coalition of local and international conservation organizations working in partnership to safeguard a critical and pristine 260,000-acre tract of forest habitat, accounting for nearly 5% of the country’s land area. This project requires our urgent attention, as Belize is experiencing a deforestation rate twice as high as other parts of Central America to clear land for large scale agriculture and livestock operations.
We must act. Slash and burn agriculture is already occurring on the borders of the site. If not purchased now, this forest will be gone by 2030, destroying habitat for iconic wildlife and changing our climate irrevocably.
BIODIVERSITY
The proposed protected area is biodiversity-rich with 200+ species of trees, 400+ species of birds (including critical wintering habitat for more than 100 migratory species) and 70+ species of mammals, including 39 species of concern – most notably, jaguar, puma, margay, ocelot, tapir and howler and spider monkeys. Property access is tightly controlled and species that are uncommon in other parts of Central America – including ocellated turkeys, white-tailed deer, white-lipped peccaries, crested guan and great curassow – are not just present, but common. Together with the contiguous Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area (RBCMA), this conservation project is a critical part of the northernmost contiguous intact tropical forest in the Western Hemisphere and anchors the Mesoamerica Biological Corridor.
THREATS
In Belize, competition for agricultural land use is increasing almost twice as fast as in other Central American countries. The development of cattle, citrus, banana, and sugar cane plantations have escalated in recent years at the expense of the forests, and large scale agriculture has quickly become a mainstay of the Belizean economy. If we do not intervene now, the overwhelming likelihood is that the majority of this forest will be purchased and converted to livestock and feedstock agriculture over the next ten years.
Local farming interests in the immediate vicinity of the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area have begun to aggressively purchase properties along its southeastern border which have subsequently been slashed and burned for crop and cattle production. An agricultural company has already acquired and cleared neighboring lands, and has proposed to purchase significantly larger forested tracts, with the intent to convert the properties to cattle production. Losing this much of the Maya Forest would destroy habitat for iconic wildlife and level an ecosystem that contains 38,241,789 mT of saved carbon, or the equivalent of 8.2M passenger vehicles driven for one year.
SOLUTIONS
This strategic purchase represents a critical missing piece of the 11 million-acre Selva Maya protected areas complex, extending from Mexico through Guatemala and Belize and south into Honduras, by far the largest remaining block of intact forest in Central America.
An extraordinary consortium of international and Belizean conservation organizations have joined with Rainforest Trust to make this purchase. Long term management and expertise for this strictly protected IUCN Category 1a protected area will be supported through REDD+ carbon revenues, with strictly limited human impact. Confidential and time-sensitive negotiations are underway now to complete the purchase of the land, with a critical deadline of the end of this year. Generous friends of Rainforest Trust and our anonymous SAVES Challenge donor are providing 2:1 match funding.
Habitat for Hundreds of
Species Protected
25 Million +
Acres Saved
30 + Years of
Conservation Successes
Rainforest Trust was founded on the premise that all rainforests, especially those replete with endangered species and endemic biodiversity, should be priority conservation sites, and that protection provides the best means of preventing destruction.
Protecting the most threatened tropical forests.
Our unique, cost-effective conservation model for protecting endangered species has been implemented successfully for over 30 years. Protection requires swift action, and we implement scientifically-based conservation plans that are not only timely, but also resilient and sustainable. With your support, we work tirelessly to permanently protect rainforests and other vital habitat throughout the world.
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Photo credits: Red Panda by Mathias Appel; Scalloped Hammerhead by Shutterstock; Santarem Parakeet by Ralph Antunes; Chimpanzee by LCRP; Variegated Spider Monkey by Santiago Rosado, Fundacion Biodiversa; Baby Orangutan by JM Curto.
