Around 450 people have crossed into Balam Kú Biosphere Reserve this year in Mexico’s southern state of Campeche, deforesting hundreds of hectares of dry tropical forest.
The group is made up of people who relocated from the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Quintana Roo, Veracruz and other parts of Campeche, according to officials.
Authorities want to remove the temporary settlements before illegal agriculture and cattle ranching spread into other parts of the reserve. So far, they’ve been unsuccessful.
Mexico’s Balam Kú Biosphere Reserve has been invaded over the past year by people trying to establish a permanent settlement, and officials are racing to remove them before more of the forest is destroyed.
Around 450 people have crossed into the reserve in the southern state of Campeche, clearing the forest for agriculture and cattle ranching. It’s the first time that the reserve, only recently federally recognized, has felt human pressure in its core conservation zone.
“If the invaders plant to settle, we will likely see deforestation, and the clearing of land for crops. They may also hunt and enter the forest for subsistence,” Alejandro Hernández Sánchez, an ecologist at ECOSUR, a public scientific research center, told Mongabay.
The reserve covers 409,200 hectares (1 million acres) of dry tropical forest and borders Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. The two reserves also border other protected areas in Guatemala, which in turn connect with protected areas in Belize, creating one of the largest contiguous protected areas in Mesoamerica.
Balam Kú was first established as a state reserve in 2003 and then federally recognized in 2023.
Click here to read the complete, original article by Maxwell Radwin on Mongabay
Source: Mongabay
