Гватемала мен Мексиканың тропикалық орманды аймағы

Tropical rainforest in Guatemala and Mexico

The Lacandon Jungle (Spanish: Selva Lacandona) is an area of rainforest which stretches from Chiapas, Mexico, into Guatemala. The heart of this rainforest is located in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas near the border with Guatemala in the Montañas del Oriente region of the state. Although much of the jungle outside the reserve has been cleared, the Lacandon is still one of the largest montane rainforests in Mexico. It contains 1,500 tree species, 33% of all Mexican bird species, 25% of all Mexican animal species, 56% of all Mexican diurnal butterflies and 16% of all Mexico's fish species. The Lacandon in Chiapas is also home to a number of important Mayan archaeological sites including Palenque, Yaxchilan and Bonampak, with numerous smaller sites which remain partially or fully unexcavated. This rainforest, especially the area inside the Biosphere Reserve, is a source of political tension, pitting the EZLN or Zapatistas and their indigenous allies who want to farm the land against international environmental groups and the Lacandon Maya, the original indigenous group of the area and the one that holds the title to most of the lands in the Montes Azules.

The jungle has approximately 1.9 million hectares stretching from southeast Chiapas into northern Guatemala and into the southern Yucatán Peninsula. The Chiapas portion is located on the Montañas del Oriente (Eastern Mountains) centered on a series of canyonlike valleys called the Cañadas, between smaller mountain ridges oriented from northwest to southeast. It is bordered by the Guatemalan border on two sides with Comitán de Domínguez to the southwest and the city of Palenque to north. Dividing the Chiapas part of the forest from the Guatemalan side is the Usumacinta River, which is the largest river in Mexico and the seventh largest in the world based on volume of water. The abundance of rain supports a large number of small rivers and streams many of which are fast moving and have waterfalls, such as the Agua Azul and the Lacanja waterfalls. The soils of the area are mostly clay and lacking phosphorus but sufficient to support a large diversity of plant species. The Lacandon is the best known of Mexico's rainforest areas because of the attention it has received in the press and efforts by international organizations to protect what is left of it. The Lacandon is one of the most biodiverse rainforests in the world, with as much as 25% of Mexico's total species diversity. Its size and biodiversity has designated it as a "biodiversity hotspot" by the Washington DC based environmental group Conservation International and under the Puebla Panama Plan. It is part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, which aims to link similar sites from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec down through Central America for conservation purposes. This is especially true for those "hotspots" located in remote trans border tropical forests.

The jungle is also home to some of Mexico's most numerous and impressive archaeological sites, all of which belong to the Mayan civilization. Palenque lies on the edge of the Lacandon, where the Eastern Mountains meet the Gulf Coast Plains. It is not the largest Mayan archaeological site, but it has some well preserved sculpture and architecture the culture produced. Major structures include the Temple of Inscriptions, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Cross; however, only a small fraction of it has been excavated. Away from the ceremonial center and on the way to the site museum are smaller buildings around the Otolum stream with a small waterfall. Yaxchilan is known for the large quantity of excellent sculpture at the site, such as the monolithic carved stelae and the narrative stone reliefs carved on lintels spanning the temple doorways. Over 120 inscriptions have been identified on the various monuments from the site. The major groups are the Central Acropolis, the West Acropolis and the South Acropolis. The South Acropolis occupies the highest part of the site. The site is relatively natural with howling monkeys, bats, toucans and other wildlife to be seen in and around the buildings. The name means “painted murals”. It is centered on a large plaza and has a stairway that leads to the Acropolis. There are also a number of notable Maya stelae. Toniná is a set of progressively smaller terraces going up a mountain instead of a cluster of buildings. Many of the stones are carved including those of residences belonging to various social strata. The site was discovered in the 17th century and is still being excavated. There is a site museum including photographs of what it looked like before the recent excavations, completely covered in jungle. Tenam Puente is on the west side of the Lacandon near Comitán de Domínguez. The site was initially built on a hill overlooking the area as a fortification. It contains about 160 buildings with thick stone walls with access by ramps which act as buttresses. The main areas in the site are the Mesoamerican ballcourt and the Acropolis. Of the local inhabitants of the Lacandon Jungle, those living just south of Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve belong to three ethnic groups, living in four villages and one town: Lacandon Maya, Tzeltal (another Maya ethnicity) and Mestizo. The Tzeltal are the most numerous (15,000) and live in the town of Nueva Palestina [es], they immigrated into the jungle from the Chiapas highlands in the 1970s to begin farms, often maize, beans or chili peppers, primarily organised in the ejido system. The Lacandon number some 550; they survive from slash and burn agriculture, growing much the same crops as the Tzeltal, as well as tourism and collecting the leaves of wild Chamaedorea palms for the cut flower industry. There are two very small Mestizo hamlets of 500 people in total. These people are also farmers, but they also keep livestock such as cattle and pigs for the local market, and grow crops like coffee and cacao, besides the typical crops. who lived along the tributaries of the upper Usumacinta River and the foothills of the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes. Most of the Lakandon Ch'ol were forcibly relocated to the Huehuetenango area of Guatemala by the Spanish in the early 18th century. The resettled Lakandon Ch'ol were soon absorbed into the local Maya populations there and ceased to exist as a separate ethnicity. Prior to the Spanish conquest, the Xocmo were a Cholan speaking group; they occupied the remote forest somewhere to the east of the Lacandon. The Xocmo were never conquered and escaped repeated Spanish attempts to locate them; their eventual fate is unknown but they may be ancestors of the modern Lacandon people. After the fall of the Itza capital Nojpetén to the Spanish invaders in 1697, a mix of Itza, Kejache and Kowoj refugees fled into the Lacandon Jungle, where they too became the ancestors of the modern Lacandon people.

There are some researchers collecting plants in the reserve. One of these is a station run by Conservation International to map the flora and fauna of Montes Azules. Mexican agribusiness enterprise Grupo Pulsar also has research stations in Chiapas. Researchers are often looked upon with suspicion and considered to be thieves by many in indigenous communities.