Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Nature and conservation
For its size, Belize has a diverse range of environments: from the coral reefs
and atolls of the Caribbean coast, through lowland swamps and lagoons, up
the valleys of pristine tropical rivers, to the exposed ridges of the Maya
Mountains. Physically, the land increases in elevation as you head south and
west; the main rivers rise in the west and flow north and east to the
Caribbean.
Away from the coast, which is covered by marine sediments for 10-20km inland, the
country can be roughly divided into three
geological regions
: the
northern lowlands
, a
continuation of the Yucatán Platform, with Cretaceous limestone overlaid by deposits
of alluvial sand; the
Maya Mountains
, where Santa Rosa quartz with granite intrusions
rises to high peaks over 3280ft; and
southern Belize
, where more Cretaceous limestone
hills with wonderfully developed
karst features
- including caverns, natural arches and
sinkholes - give way to foothills and the coastal plain. The
wildlife
is correspondingly
varied; undisturbed forests provide a home to both temperate species from the north
and tropical species from the south, including indigenous species unique to Belize. In
winter, hundreds of native birds are joined by dozens of migrant species from the
eastern seaboard of North America. The variety of land and marine ecosystems makes
Belize a focus of scientific research.
Belize's impressive network of national parks, nature reserves and wildlife sanctuaries
makes up over 42 percent of its land area, a feat made possible by a low population
density. It's an amazing accomplishment for a developing country, and with such
enlightened strategies to safeguard biodiversity, Belize has gained recognition as the
most conservation-conscious country in the Americas. The success of these protected
areas is due as much to the efforts of local communities as it is to governmental
decisions.
The tropical forest
Belize still has over fifty percent of its
primary forest
, and across most of the country
the natural vegetation is technically
tropical moist forest
, classified by average
temperatures of 25°C and annual rainfall of 78-157in; the only true
rainforest
lies in a
small belt in the extreme southwest. More than four thousand flowering plant species
can be found, including seven hundred species of tree (about the same as the whole of
the US and Canada) and over two hundred varieties of orchid. Scientists have
identified seventy different types of forest: thirteen percent
pine savannah
(known in
Belize as “pine ridge”, regardless of the elevation); nineteen percent
mangrove and
coastal forest
(which includes rare
caye littoral forest
); with the remaining 68 percent
broadleaf forest
and cohune palm - commonly referred to as rainforest.
Diversity
characterizes tropical forest, with each species specifically adapted to fit a
particular ecological niche. This biological storehouse has yet to be fully explored,
though it has already yielded some astonishing discoveries. Steroid hormones, such as
cortisone, and diosgenin, the active ingredient in birth control pills, were developed
from wild yams found here, while tetrodoxin, derived from a species of Central
American frog, is an anaesthetic 160,000 times stronger than cocaine. But despite its
size and diversity the forest is surprisingly
fragile
, forming a closed system in which
nutrients are continuously recycled and decaying plant matter fuels new growth. The
forest floor is a spongy mass of roots, fungi, mosses, bacteria and micro-organisms, in
which nutrients are stored, broken down with the assistance of insects and chemical
decay, and gradually released to the waiting roots and fresh seedlings. The thick canopy
