Lacandon Forest

The Lacandon Jungle (Spanish: Selva Lacandona) is an area of rainforest which stretches from Chiapas, Mexico, into Guatemala and into the southern part of the Yucatán Peninsula. The heart of this rainforest is located in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas near the border with Guatemala in the Montañas del Oriente region of the state. Although most of the jungle outside the reserve has been partially or completely destroyed and damage continues inside the Reserve, the Lacandon is still the largest montane rainforest in North America and one of the last ones left large enough to support jaguars. It contains 1,500 tree species, 33% of all Mexican bird species, 25% of all Mexican animal species, 44% of all Mexican diurnal butterflies and 10% of all Mexico's fish species.

The Lacandon in Chiapas is also home to a number of important Mayan archeological sites including Palenque, Yaxchilan and Bonampak, with numerous smaller sites which remain partially or fully unexcavated. This rainforest, especially the area inside the Biosphere Reserve, is a source of political tension, pitting the EZLN or Zapatistas and their indigenous allies who want to farm the land against international environmental groups and the Lacandon Maya, the original indigenous group of the area and the one who has legal title to most of the lands in Montes Azules.

The Lacandon has approximately 1.9 million hectares stretching from southeast Chiapas into northern Guatemala and into the southern Yucatán Peninsula. The Chiapas portion is located on the Montañas del Oriente (Eastern Mountains) centered on a series of canyonlike valleys called the Cañadas, between smaller mountain ridges oriented from northwest to southeast. It is bordered by the Guatemalan border on two sides with Comitán de Domínguez to the southwest and the city of Palenque to north. The core of the Chiapas forest is the Montes Azules Biosphere reserve, but it also includes some other protected areas such as Bonampak, Yaxchilan, Chan Kin, Lacantum and the communal reserve of La Cojolita. Dividing the Chiapas part of the forest from the Guatemalan side is the Usumacinta River, which of the largest in Mexico and the seventh largest in the world based on volume of water. The area has a mostly hot and humid climate (Köppen Amg) with most rain falling from summer into fall, with an average of 2300 to 2600 mm per year. There is a short dry season from March to May when as little as thirty mm falls. The average annual temperature s 24.7C. The abundance of rain supports a large number of small rivers and streams many of which are fast moving and have waterfalls, such as the Agua Azul and the Lacanja waterfalls. The soils of the area are mostly clay and lacking phosphorus but sufficient to support a large diversity of plant species.

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