Preservation, Rehabilitation, and Management of Heritage Wetlands in Mexico - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 160

cultural similarities to, and planning and managerial lessons that can be gained
from, several prominent case studies in Mexico that concern the preservation, reha-
bilitation, and management of culturally and ecologically important wetlands.
PANTANOS DE CENTLA
h istory and d esCriPtion
The Pantanos de Centla wetlands are located on the Gulf of Mexico coast in the
province of Tabasco (Figure 11.1) and have a similarly rich and ancient history of
inhabitation as the Iraqi marshlands (Plata 2002). The wetlands are located nearby
several prominent Olmec sites, one of the oldest civilizations in the New World,
which in 1200 bce were contemporaneous with those in Mesopotamia. For the most
part, the Olmecs were a wetland-based civilization living, as they did until recently
in the Iraqi marshlands, in reed huts (Figure 11.2). PEMEX, the Mexican oil com-
pany, destroyed La Venta (Greenpeace 1997), the oldest city in North America,
whose famous basalt busts were rescued and moved to an archeological park in
the modern city of Villahermosa (Figure 11.3). Also nearby is the late-classical
Mayan-period (700 ce) city of Colmalcalco, which contains the oldest brickwork
in the New World (Figure 11.4) and is located in very flat and ephemerally flooded
forest wetlands.
The Pantanos de Centla Park consists of a matrix of over 300,000 ha of wetlands
and seasonally flooded forests and is one of the most important sites for biodiversity
in Latin America. The region contains 15 percent of all Mexican species, including
FIGURE 11.1 Schematic map showing historical Olmec cities along the Gulf of Mexico.
The Pantanos de Centla are situated at the eastern (right) side of the map.