Mexico

Pinacate National Park, Mexico Acquired on: Dec 05, 2002
Pinacate National Park is a 770 square mile (2,000 square km) volcanic field in the Sonora province of Mexico, near the Arizona border. This field contains more than 300 volcanic vents and cinder cones, including at least 10 maar craters. Maar eruptions are a rare form of volcano which erupts violently when rising magma meets underground water, producing a pocket of highly pressurized steam that blows a nearly circular hole in the crust above. The largest crater in the Pinacate Field is Cerro Colorado, a maar crater of about a kilometer in diameter.

Mexico

Trip Reports

• Oaxaca:  A new 150 x 12 Pinus Strobus
• http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/MapGoogleMexicoRoute.html 
• Tule Tree
• Tule Tree near Oaxaca http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/529e0911b6cec40f?hl=en

Baja California Peninsula

• Constitución de 1857 (National Park)
• Sierra de San Pedro Mártir (National Park) 
• Isla Rasa (Special Biosphere Reserve)
• El Vizcaíno (Biosphere Reserve)
• Isla Guadalupe (Special Biosphere Reserve)
• Isla del Golfo (Special Biosphere Reserve)

Campeche

• Calakmul (Biosphere Reserve)

Coahuila

• Balneario de Los Novillos (National Park)

Colima

• Volcán Nevado de Colima (National Park)

Chiapas

• Palenque (National Park)
• Cañon del Sumidero (National Park)
• Cascadas de Agua Azúl (Special Biosphere Reserve)
• El Triunfo (Biosphere Reserve)
• Seva del Ocote (Special Biosphere Reserve)
• Lagunas de Montebello (National Park)
• Montes Azules (Biosphere Reserve)

Chihuahua

• Casacada de Basaseachic (National Park)
• Cumbres de Majalca (National Park)

Federal District (D.F.)

• Desierto de Los Leones (National Park)
• El Tepeyac (National Park)
• Cerro de la Estrella (National Park)
• Cumbres del Ajusco (National Park)

Durango

• Mapimí (Biosphere Reserve)
• La Michilía (Biosphere Reserve)

Estado de Mexico

• Nevado de Toluca (National Park)
• Desierto del Carmen o de Nixcongo (National Park)
• Los Remedios (National Park)
• Izta - Popo (National Park)
• Zoquiapan y Anexas (National Park)
• Insurgente Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (National Park)
• Molino de Flores Netzahualcóyotl (National Park)
• Sacramonte (National Park)
• Bosencheve (National Park)

Guerrero

• El Veladero (National Park)

Hidalgo

• El Chico (National Park)
• Los Mármoles (National Park)
• Tula (National Park)

Jalisco

• Sierra de Manantlán (Biosphere Reserve)

Michoacan

• Lago de Camécuaro (National Park)
• Mariposa Monarca (Special Biosphere Reserve)
• Cerro de Garnica (National Park)
• Pico de Tancítaro (National Park)
• Rayón (National Park)
• Insurgente José Maria Morelos y Pavón (National Park)

Tule Tree - Planeta http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/mexico/oaxaca/tule.html OAXACA -- Mexico's most famous tree, and some say the world's largest single biomass, the Tule Tree (Arbol del Tule) grows near Oaxaca City in the town of Santa Maria del Tule off the road leading to Teotitlan, Santa Ana de Valle and the Mitla archaeological site. The Tule Tree and its environs comprise a unique natural monument in Mexico. The town of Santa Maria del Tule takes its name from the famous tree and boasts seven extremely large and ancient cypress trees. The largest dwarfs the town's church (seephoto!) and is more than 2,000 years old. This tree has a circumference of 54 meters (164 feet) -- the largest girth of any tree on the planet. Imagine ... this tree was a sapling at the time when the civilization at Monte Alban was flourishing! 

NOAA International Tree Ring Data Search http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ftp-treering.html Use this form to search the International Tree Ring Data Bank. The search results will be presented as a list of files, which can then be clicked for transfer to your computer. For more information visit our Tree-ring pages. 

Mexico Biosphere Reserves and National Parks http://www.mexonline.com/natlpark.htm A brief listing of national parks & reserves listed by state.  

GORP Outdoor Mexico National parks and Protected Public Lands http://gorp.away.com/gorp/location/latamer/mexico/pks_intr.htm There was a time when there was no Mexico-U.S. border. Northern Mexico still has many geographic and cultural continuities with the U.S. border states of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, and California. Here you'll find the deserts of Baja California and the Sonoran Desert. In between the two is the blue, blue Sea of Cortez, where the sea kayaking is fine. The northeast, where the mountains trap the moist Gulf of Mexico air, tends to be rainy and humid.  

WWF-UK Research centre: Mexico's Forests http://www.wwf.org.uk/researcher/places/0000000254.asp Mexico's Forest Programme: The biodiversity of Mexico's forests is globally outstanding. They contain 50 per cent of the world's pine species and a remarkable 135 species of oak. Mexico is also one of the few countries in the world where nearly all the forests – some 80 per cent – are owned by indigenous and local communities. But Mexico's forests are being lost at an alarming rate: indeed, an area more than twice the size of Scotland has been lost in the last 40 years. The main causes of forest loss are clearance for agriculture and grazing, poor and illegal logging practices, uncontrolled forest fires and major infrastructure development. However, the root causes – such as loss of indigenous knowledge and weak community organisation – are much wider. WWF-UK's Mexico Forests Programme aims to reduce the loss of forest resources, increase the area of protected forests, promote sustainable forest management and improve the livelihoods of people who depend on forests. 

The Sexto Sol Center for Community Action http://www.sextosol.org/coffee_eco_concerns.shtml An estimated 600,000 hectares of old growth forest is cut each year in Mexico. Only a small fraction of the damaged land is reforested.  The Sierra Madre region of Chiapas, Mexico is an amazingly diverse environment with hot tropical forests a few kilometers away from coniferous cloud forest. There are species of orchids that are found only here. In the rainshadow there are cactus intermixed with fragrant copal and the gracious, grand guanacastle trees. This is the headwaters for 46 rivers to the Pacific side of the divide. Numerous other rivers flow inland to join the Grijalva River that flows from Guatemala through to the center of Chiapas.  Once this massive watershed formed part of what was a continuous, lush Central American forest. But the Chiapas forest was severely damaged sixteen years ago by a large scale commercial logging project by no less than a former governor of the state.

NPP Tropical Forest: Chamela, Mexico, 1982-1995 http://daac.ornl.gov/NPP/site_des/chm_des.html  Cite this data set as follows: [Maass, M., and A. Martinez-Yrizar. 2001. NPP Tropical Forest: Chamela, Mexico, 1982-1995. ]  Data set. Available on-line http://www.daac.ornl.gov  from Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A.] Description:  Net primary productivity (NPP) of a tropical dry deciduous forest was estimated, based on the integration of ecosystem data obtained in various years between 1982 and 1995, at the Chamela Biological Station of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). The Biosphere Reserve Chamela-Cuixmala, Jalisco, is situated near the Pacific coast of Mexico (19.50 N 105.02 W), 2 km inland and about 40 km south of the town of Tomatlan. 

Who's Who in Mexico Forestry - Planeta.com  http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/mexico/mxforestwho.html CONSEJO NACIONAL FORESTAL (CONAFOR), the National Forest Commission, is part of SEMARNAT and was established in 2001 as a new federal initiative by President Fox. Its main objectives are to improve Mexico's forest sector in both its natural forests and by establishing commercial plantations. One of its main goals is to support and implement the recently revised Forestry Law that they consider to be "inclusive and democratic," since it is hoped these efforts will allow local governments, civic agencies, and the private sector to participate in forest policy setting and programs. They have already supported more than 10,000 sustainable forestry projects and have created over 100 forest research projects. 

Maya Forest - The Nature Conservancy http://nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/mexico/work/art8622.html This lowland forest, containing numerous archeological sites of the ancient Maya civilization, forms the second-largest contiguous tract of tropical forest in the Americas—only the Amazon is larger. The Maya Forest forms the heart of the Yucatán Peninsula, covering more than six million acres from the Caribbean coast of Mexico through Belize and into the Petén region of Guatemala.

• WNTS Home Page
• Copyright Information