Mesoamerica

From Mexico to Colombia, Mesoamerica spans the world's third-largest Biodiversity Hotspot. Seven percent of the planet's biodiversity lives here. Re:wild and partners are working to keep it wild.

Mesoamerica covers only half a percent of the planet but holds seven percent of its biodiversity.

Mesoamerica stretches from southern Mexico through Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and into Colombia.

Its mountain ranges, rivers, and forests are home to Jaguars, Baird's Tapirs, Spider Monkeys, Central American River Turtles, and Great Green Macaws. Billions of North American migratory birds fly through or winter here. It is also a bastion of Indigenous cultures: the Miskitu, Rama, Emberá, and dozens of other peoples who have been the true guardians of these forests for centuries.

The pressures are real. Cattle ranching, illegal land-grabs, increasingly severe hurricanes, and the chronic underfunding of Indigenous-led conservation have pushed Mesoamerica's forests to the edge. Three of the Five Great Forests have shrunk almost a quarter in size since 2004. But the work to protect them is moving, and Re:wild is part of it.

Protecting these forests means protecting Indigenous rights.

The Five Great Forests, which together cover an area three times the size of Switzerland, are critical carbon stores and biodiversity strongholds. More than half of that area is governed by Indigenous communities who have lived there sustainably for generations. Re:wild's work in Mesoamerica starts from that fact, and builds from it.

Learn About the Five Great Forests

An autonomous conservation model for the forests of Nicaragua

In Nicaragua's Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, Re:wild worked with the Rama and Kriol communities to develop an autonomous system of management for the 80% of the reserve that falls within their ancestral lands. This included establishing an autonomous ranger force, implementing wildlife crime prevention tools, developing a financial administration system, and creating a visual management plan accessible to anyone regardless of language.

Re:wild continues to work with 13 Indigenous and Afro-descendant rangers in the region alongside Panthera, local leaders, and Indigenous lawyers to implement this plan and defend the ancestral lands of the Rama and Kriol from illegal encroachment by cattle ranchers and land traffickers.

Read About Indio Maíz

Keeping the Maya Forest Corridor alive

The Maya Forest Corridor is a strip of forest five to six miles wide, the only connection between Belize's two Jaguar Conservation Units. It has shrunk by more than 65% over the past decade, at a rate of deforestation four times Belize's national average. In 2021, Re:wild and partners purchased 30,000 acres — the single largest property that could have been acquired within the corridor, and the one most urgently under threat.

That purchase is now under management by WCS Belize. Re:wild and the Maya Forest Corridor Coalition continue to work toward protecting an additional 50,000 acres needed to keep the corridor functional for Jaguars, Baird's Tapirs, White-lipped Peccaries, and the full range of species that depend on it.

Explore the Corridor