How swampwood is makingwaves in rock music: the Chiquibul Forest, Belize

摘要

I have flown into Belize, many times over the last 25 years, but I still get a thrill when I strain against my airplane seat-belt to glimpse the mosaic of verdant and azure landscapes that cover this small country located on the north-east coast of Central America.On this occasion I am returning deep into the Chiquibul Forest and National Park Reserve, to the Las Cuevas Research Station, a cluster of wooded stilted buildings that provide accommodation, food and peaceful tranquility to foresters, scientists and students studying the forest. It is a place I know well having been fortunate enough to manage it for many years on behalf of the Natural History Museum, London (NHM) and the Belize Forest Department (BFD) in the 1990s.The Chiquibul Forest Reserve and National Park borders Guatemala and provides a buffer for two other protectedareas, namely the Bladen Nature Reserve and the Cockscomb Wildlife Sanctuary, known collectively, as Chiquibul Maya Mountains Key Biodiversity Area (CMMKBA). It is an area the size of Cornwall, in the UK, and constitutes part of the wider 5M ha forest known as La Selva Maya or The Maya Forest. Classified as lowland tropical broad-leafed rainforest, the forest boasts approximately 375 plant species found nowhere else on earth, it provides refuge for countless rare and endangered species, such as the white lipped peccary, Bairds tapir, harpy eagle and howler monkey. You can often hear the rasping squawk of Scarlet Macaws as they fly freely overhead and it is one of the few places on Earth where the five large neo-tropical cat species (jaguar, puma, ocelot, jaguarondi and margay) co-exist.