Maya Biosphere Reserve’s forests are growing rather than shrinking, thanks to a community-led conservation program
Environment
September 26, 2022
Tikal National Park is part of the Mayan Forest in Guatemala Mariana Diaz/WCS
A community-led conservation program in Guatemala has halted and begun to reverse two decades of deforestation in an area seriously threatened by land grabbing by cattle ranchers and drug traffickers.
Life is now returning to whole swaths of the Maya Biosphere Reserve which were illegally cleared 13 years ago. The regeneration of the forest means that it was 25 square kilometers larger in 2020 than in 2019 and grew by an additional 3.5 square kilometers in 2021. What were the uniform pastures…