location: Mesoamerica

location: Mesoamerica

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After historic 2024 coral bleaching, hope remains for Mesoamerican Reef
- The Mesoamerican Reef, the longest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere, stretches 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) along the Caribbean coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.
- The latest instalment of the Mesoamerican Reef Report Card, a periodic health assessment, finds that in 2024, the worst coral bleaching event on record reduced the reef’s coral cover.
- Although the overall health of the Mesoamerican Reef remains “poor,” according to the report, its health actually improved for the first time in five years.
- The report attributes this positive development to an increase in fish populations due to effective enforcement of fisheries rules by regional authorities.

Conservation pays and everyone’s benefitting from it (commentary)
- In this commentary, Diego Vincenzi, current chief of staff for the Minister of Environment and Energy in Costa Rica, highlights how Costa Rica halted deforestation, achieved 57% forest cover after reaching a low of 21% in the 1980s, and protected 25% of its land while becoming the top per capita agricultural exporter in Latin America..
- Costa Rica’s success stems from a shift in the 1990s towards greener environmental legislation, introducing the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme funded by a fossil fuel tax, which compensates landowners for forest conservation and now includes untitled lands, benefiting native populations.
- FONAFIFO, the institution managing PES, is expanding the program to cover 182,000 hectares annually and introducing biodiversity certificates for estates, aiming to broaden conservation efforts to include mangrove ecosystems, linking land and water for a more sustainable environment.
- This is a commentary and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.

Alternatives to farmwork empower communities and save forests, study finds
- A new study shows that human activity, especially agriculture, undertaken around biosphere reserves can lead to deforestation and biodiversity loss inside the reserves themselves.
- The main solution, say researchers, is to provide local communities with alternative livelihoods to agriculture, as expanding farming practices are the main drivers of forest loss.
- Researchers say locals don’t necessarily want to cut down trees, but they often do because of lack of other economic opportunities, or lack of infrastructure and other services nearby.

Some hummingbird females display male coloring to avoid being harassed
- Hummingbirds with brightly colored feathers typical of males are harassed by other birds less frequently than those with drab female-colored feathers.
- Male coloring in one species of hummingbird gives a social advantage to females displaying that color pattern.
- This study is the first to show these behaviors in action with live hummingbirds.

Jaguars in Mexico are growing in number, a promising sign that national conservation strategies are working
- The first surveys to count jaguars in Mexico revealed a 20% increase in the population from 2010 to 2018, up to 4,800 animals.
- Conservation strategies targeted the most urgent threats to jaguars, and prioritized protecting wildlife preserves and natural corridors.
- Mexico’s National Alliance for Jaguar Conservation united the government, people living near protected areas, and the private sector in plans to conserve the iconic species.

For some Indigenous, COVID presents possibility of cultural extinction, says Myrna Cunningham
- COVID-19 has devastated communities around the world, but for some Indigenous groups, the pandemic posed an existential threat.
- Few people are better placed to speak to the impact COVID is having on Indigenous communities than Myrna Cunningham, a Miskitu physician from the Wangki river region of Nicaragua who has spent 50 years advocating for the rights of women and Indigenous peoples at local, regional, national, and international levels.
- Cunningham’s many achievements and accolades include: First Miskito doctor in Nicaragua; first woman governor of the Waspam autonomous region; Chairperson of the PAWANKA Fund; President of the Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC); Advisor to the President of the UN General Assembly during the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples; member of the Board of Directors of the Global Fund for Women; Deputy of the Autonomous Region of the North Atlantic Coast in Nicaragua’s National Assembly; president of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development; and the first Honoris Causa Doctorate granted by the National Autonomous University of Mexico Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México to an indigenous woman, among others.
- Cunningham spoke about a range of issues in a recent interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Former dam executive found guilty in the killing of Berta Cáceres
- The alleged ringleader of the 2016 killing of environmental and Indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres was convicted of murder by a Honduran court on Monday.
- Roberto David Castillo Mejía, the ex-head of the dam company Desa, was found guilty of participating in the assassination of Cáceres. The court decision was unanimous.
- Cáceres was gunned down in her home on March 2, 2016 at the age of 44 after leading opposition to the Agua Zarca dam on the Rio Galcarque, a river that holds spiritual significance for the Lenca people.
- Cáceres was recognized for her activism in 2015 when she won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.

Scientists in Costa Rica are growing new corals to save reefs
- For three years scientists with Raising Coral Costa Rica have been snapping off coral pieces from existing reefs to grow them in an underwater nursery.
- The team is using tested techniques and experimental ideas to grow coral and revive ancient reefs in Golfo Dulce, southwestern Costa Rica.
- Their findings are helping to restore local ecosystems, and could help researchers who hope to revive reefs in nearby countries. The species of the Golfo Dulce, when compared to a lot of the world’s reefs, may hold extraordinary clues about resilience to changing ocean conditions.
- As the race to save our oceans against a changing climate accelerates around the world, knowing how to rebuild one of its foundational components, coral reefs, may be one way that scientists can help them survive in a warming world.

The turtle egg that pinged back: Tracing a poaching pathway in Costa Rica
- A team of scientists has created 3D printed decoy sea turtle eggs, fitted with GPS trackers to follow the path of eggs stolen by poachers.
- In a recent study on the first trial run of these eggs, the team confirmed that most poached sea turtle eggs are traded locally.
- However, they also identified a much longer track — 137 kilometers, or 85 miles — that illuminated the pathway of what appears to be a much more organized trade system.
- Mongabay followed the hour-by-hour track of this egg to understand why sea turtle poaching still happens, and to learn what experts think can be done to stop it.

Keystone mammal plunges 87% in Mesoamerica
- White-lipped peccaries, the pig-like mammals that range from Mexico to Argentina, are in “precipitous decline” in their Mesoamerican range, according to a new study.
- Their numbers in this region may have dropped by as much as 90% over the past 40 years, sparking a push for a new conservation assessment.
- The main threat to the species is the destruction of its rainforest habitat, largely attributed to the expansion of agriculture and cattle pasture.
- Conservationists say the loss of peccaries will have significant ramifications for rainforest ecosystems, which the animals are important in shaping through seed dispersal, tree control, and creation of watering holes.

The perfect firestorm: COVID-19 in Mesoamerica’s indigenous territories (commentary)
- Jeremy Radachowsky, Director of the Mesoamerica and Western Caribbean Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), writes about a recent expedition to the Miskitu indigenous territory called Bakinasta in the heart of Honduras’s Moskitia Forest.
- Radachowsky’s team entered the area before the COVID-19 epidemic started spreading widely through the Americas. By the time they exited the remote area, the world was a different place.
- Radachowsky says the Bakinasta territory, which is already under severe threat due to invasions by land grabbers, is being devastated economically by COVID-19. He’s calling on the global community to help indigenous peoples as they navigate this crisis.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Deforestation clips howler monkey calls, study finds
- In a recent study, scientists report that howler monkeys in Costa Rica make longer calls in forest interiors and near naturally occurring forest edges, such as those along rivers, than near human-created edges.
- The researchers believe that the longer howls serve as a way for male monkeys to protect their groups’ access to higher-quality food resources.
- The team’s findings indicate that this behavioral change in response to deforestation supports the protection of standing forest and reforestation along human-created forest edges.

Greta and Mesoamerica’s five great forests (commentary)
- In New York’s Battery Park last Friday night, Greta Thunberg rightly said, “This is an emergency. Our house is on fire.” She continued, “This Monday, world leaders are going to be gathered here in New York City for the U.N. Climate Action Summit. The eyes of the world will be on them. They have a chance to take leadership, to prove they actually hear us.”
- In Mesoamerica, leaders are listening and acting. During the Climate Summit, Mesoamerica’s leaders announced their commitment to protect the “Five Great Forests of Mesoamerica” and shared some of their governments’ lessons learned to date to reduce forest fires and tackle deforestation.
- We are supporting them by promoting an initiative in which governments, Indigenous Peoples, and civil society are coming together to protect 10 million hectares and restore 500,000 hectares in these critical forest areas, thereby helping safeguard the world’s climate.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

The biggest rainforest news stories in 2018
- This is our annual rainforests year in review post.
- Overall, 2018 was not a good year for the planet’s tropical rainforests.
- Rainforest conservation suffered many setbacks, especially in Brazil, the Congo Basin, and Madagascar.
- Colombia was one of the few bright spots for rainforests in 2018.

‘Light for everyone’: Indigenous youth mount a solar-powered resistance
- Among the cloud forests of northern Puebla, Mexico, an indigenous cooperative is training its youth to install solar panels.
- The initiative was born of the cooperative’s contentious fight with the federal and local government over plans to build an electricity substation that the co-op members believed would only benefit industry, not local communities.
- The panels are part of a plan hatched by these mountain communities to unhook from Mexico’s federal power company, provide their youth with meaningful employment, and reclaim control of their land and resources.
- The initiative appears to be well aligned with the renewable-energy plans of Mexico’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Secondary forests in Costa Rica are re-cleared within decades
- Secondary forests in Costa Rica, which are important for the country’s reforestation and climate change goals, don’t last long enough to recover previously lost biomass and biodiversity, a new study shows.
- Within 20 years, half of the secondary forest in a region of Coto Brus was cleared. After 54 years, 85 percent of these young forests were gone. The results contradict national reports of increasing forest coverage.
- Costa Rica should shift from its current commitment to restore 1 million hectares of degraded land by 2020 to longer-term commitments to ensure the persistence of young forests, researchers propose.

Tropical trees grow most easily where they are rare
- Researchers have long puzzled over why tropical forests contain such diverse species of plants and animals.
- A new study, examining the distribution of a common flowering tree in Panama, found confirmation for a decades-old hypothesis.
- This hypothesis maintains that as a species becomes more common, its natural predators limit its spread, thereby creating diversity.
- Satellite images over a 10-year period provided the evidence needed to prove the validity of this idea.

Researcher names spectacular new frog after his granddaughter
- A researcher has identified a colorful tree frog as a new species.
- Andrew Gray, Curator of Herpetology at Manchester Museum, conducted genetic and biochemical analysis on frogs that were thought to be a morph of Cruziohyla calcarifer.
- His research, published in the journal Zootaxa, showed that individuals collected from Panama and northern South America are genetically distinct.
- He named the new amphibian Sylvia’s Tree Frog, Cruziohyla sylviae, after his 3-year-old granddaughter.

Scientists condemn expansion of industrial monocultures at expense of traditional gardens in Mexico
- Planned expansion of industrial monocultures in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula poses a threat to traditional agricultural practices, say scientists.
- Mexico has traditionally been at the forefront of recognizing community rights to forest management, including including having strong land tenure laws.
- Mexico is currently losing over 150,000 hectares of forest per year

Guatemalan authorities destroy secret airstrip in Laguna del Tigre National Park
- Clandestine landing strips are often built in forest reserves by cattle ranchers who are actually working for drug traffickers.
- After Mongabay-Latam and Plaza Pública reported on the runway’s existence, the Guatemalan Army was ordered to destroy it.
- It is unclear if the strip was abandoned or under construction, but such structures pose a threat to the health of Laguna del Tigre National Park

Do Costa Rica’s payments for environmental services work?
- While Costa Rica is now known as a world leader for conservation policies and ecotourism, the Central American country had some of the world’s highest deforestation rates prior to establishing its reputation.
- Clearing for cattle pasture and agriculture destroyed much of the country’s biodiverse rainforests in the 1960s and 1970s.
- Do Costa Rica’s ecosystem payments work?

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