The Lacandon Jungle is one of the protected areas of Chiapas that is home to the largest number of endemic species in Mexico. Know why we should take care of it!
The importance of the biodiversity of the Lacandon jungle it is a fact recognized and studied by many biologists and researchers. Not in vain the Chajul Scientific Station you are in this jungle full of endemic species of Mexico and species in danger of extinction. However, the more that is known about the Lacandon Jungle and the protected areas of Chiapas, more obvious is the lack of knowledge about the biodiversity that expands across its 17,779 km2, and such a situation represents a challenge for researchers who come to the nominee as the first tropical rain forest of Mesoamerica.
The Lacandon Jungle, located at the eastern end of Chiapas, owes its name to an island in Lake Miramar called Lacam-tún, which means large stone, and whose inhabitants the Spanish called Lacandones.
Between the years 300 and 900 he was born in this Chiapas jungle one of the greatest civilizations in Mesoamerica: the Mayan, and after its disappearance the Lacandon Jungle remained relatively uninhabited until the first half of the 19th century, when logging companies, mostly foreign, established themselves along the navigable rivers and started an intensive process of exploitation of cedar and mahogany. After the Revolution, timber extraction increased even more until 1949, when a government decree put an end to the exploitation of the tropical rainforest, seeking to protect its biodiversity and promoting protected areas in Chiapas. However, a serious process of colonization then began, and the arrival of peasants with lack of experience in tropical forests caused it to deteriorate even more and to begin to be the Lacandon jungle in danger.
In the last 40 years, deforestation of the Lacandon Jungle it has been so accelerated that if it continues at the same rate, the Lacandon rainforest will disappear. Of 1.5 million ha that had the Lacandon Jungle in ChiapasToday there are 500,000 left that it is urgent to conserve due to its great value, because in them lies the greatest biodiversity in Mexico, with exclusive fauna and flora of the area, in addition to the fact that these hectares are a very important climate regulator and have a hydrological value. of the first order due to the mighty rivers that irrigate them. If we lose the Lacandon Jungle, we lose a valuable part of Mexico's natural heritage and endemic species. However, so far all the decrees and programs proposed for the vital Lacandon Jungle area have not yielded optimal or sustainable results and have not benefited either the Jungle or the Lacandon. Therefore, the Chajul station that UNAM directs, it can be an option to protect and make this jungle of Mexico known to the rest of the world. Love and respect are born from knowledge.
Research station for the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve
The Chajul station is located within the limits of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, which was decreed as one of the protected areas of Chiapas in 1978 to preserve the representative natural environment of the region and ensure balance and the continuity of its biodiversity and evolutionary and ecological processes. The reserve has an area of 331,200 ha, which represents 0.6% of the national territory. Its main vegetation is tropical humid forest, and to a lesser extent, flooded savannas, cloud forests and pine-oak forests. Regarding the fauna, Montes Azules contains 31% of the birds of the entire country, 19% of the mammals and 42% of the butterflies of the superfamily papilionoidea. Furthermore, it particularly protects a large number of species in danger of extinction in Chiapas, to save their genetic diversity.
Two thirds of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve are lands that belong to Lacandon communities, which occupy the buffer zone fully respecting the ecosystem. The Lacandon does not allow an excess in the extraction of the resources offered by the tropical rain forest, and although it is a skilled predator, it never collects more from it than is strictly necessary. Their behavior is totally sustainable for their habitat and an example for everyone to follow.
Origin of the Chajul station
The history of the Chajul station dates back to 1983 when SEDUE began the construction of seven stations for the control and surveillance of the reserve. In 1984 the works were completed and in 1985, as often happens, they were abandoned due to lack of budget and planning.
Some biologists such as Rodrigo Medellín, interested in the conservation and study of the Lacandon Forest, saw the Chajul station as a strategic point for their research on the biodiversity of the area. Doctor Medellín began his studies on the area in 1981 with the idea of evaluating the impact of the Lacandon cornfields on mammalian communities and obtained his doctoral thesis at the University of Florida. In this regard, he tells us that in 1986 he went to this city with the firm decision to do his doctoral thesis on Lacandona and to recover the station for UNAM. And he succeeded, because at the end of 1988 the Chajul station was launched with resources contributed by the University of Florida, and later Conservation International gave it a strong push with more funds. By the mid-1990s, the station was already operating as a research center and was headed by Dr. Rodrigo Medellín as director.
The main objective of the Chajul Scientific Station is to generate information about the Lacandon Jungle and its biodiversity, and for this it requires the constant presence of researchers from the country or foreigners who propose useful proposals for a better knowledge of the fauna and flora of the area. Likewise, the more projects demonstrate the biological importance of this jungle in Mexico, the easier it will be to preserve it.
Chajul station projects
All the projects carried out at the Chajul station are important contributions to science, and some of them have even been revolutionary in terms of the study of the evolution of species. Specifically, there is the case of the biologist Esteban Martínez, discoverer of a plant of a species, genus and family unknown until now, which is saprophytic and lives under the litter in a floodable area in the eastern part of the Lacantún basin. The flower of this plant has a novel and unique feature, which is that normally all flowers have stamens (the male sex) around the pistil (the female sex), and instead it has several pistils around a central stamen. Her name is Lacandona schismatia.
At this time the station is underutilized due to a lack of projects, and this situation is largely due to the political problem in Chiapas. But despite the risks it represents, the researchers are still at the station fighting for the Chiapas jungle. Among them are Karen O’brien, a biologist at the University of Pennsylvania who is currently developing her thesis on the relationships between deforestation and climate change in the Lacandon Forest; the psychologist Roberto José Ruiz Vidal from the University of Murcia (Spain) and the graduate Gabriel Ramos from the Institute of Biomedical Research (Mexico) who study the behavioral ecology of the Spider Monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) in the Lacandon Forest, and the biologist Ricardo A. Frías from UNAM, which carries out other research projects, but is currently coordinating the Chajul station, a position that will later be transferred to Dr. Rodrigo Medellín.
Types of bats in the Lacandon Jungle
This project was chosen as a thesis topic by two students from the UNAM Institute of Ecology and its main objective is to make known all the necessary information so that the bad image of the bat disappears and its valuable contribution to the environment is valued.
In the world there are approximately 950 types of bats different Of these species, there are 134 throughout Mexico and about 65 of them within the Lacandon Jungle. In Chajul, 54 species have been recorded so far, a fact that makes this area the most diverse in the world in terms of bats.
Most types of bats are beneficial, especially nectoivores and sectivores; the former act as pollinators and the latter devour 3 grams of malefic insects per hour, and such data demonstrate their great efficiency in capturing these harmful animals. Frugivorous species act as seed dispersers, as they transport the fruit long distances to devour it, and when they defecate they scatter the seeds. Another benefit that these mammals provide is guano, bat excrement, which is one of the richest sources of nitrogen for compost, and is highly appreciated in the northern Mexican and southern United States markets.
In the past, bats were accused of being direct carriers of the disease called istoplasmosis, but this has been shown to be untrue. The disease is caused by breathing in the spores of a fungus called Istoplasma capsulatum that grows on top of both chicken and pigeon droppings, causing a serious infection in the lungs that can lead to death.
The development of the theses of Osiris and Miguel began in April 1993 and continued for 10 months, of which 15 days of each month were spent in the Lacandon Jungle. Osiris Gaona Pineda's thesis deals with the importance of seed dispersal by bats and Miguel Amín Ordoñez's on the ecology of bat communities in modified habitats. Their field work was carried out as a team, but in the thesis each one developed a different theme.
Preliminary conclusions, given the difference in species captured in the different study areas, show that there is a direct impact between habitat disturbance and the number and types of bats trapped. Many more varieties are caught in the jungle than in other places, probably due to the abundance of food and the available diurnal niche.
The purpose of this study is to show that the deforestation of the Lacandon Jungle is directly damaging the behavior, diversity and number of animals in this jungle area. The habitat of hundreds of species is changing and with it their evolution is being stunted. These areas need an urgent regeneration to be able to save in time the fauna and flora of the tropical rainforest that are already condemned to extinction, and that is why the protection of all types of bats that inhabit this forest is so important.
For the past millennia we Westerners have thought of ourselves as separate and superior to the rest of nature. But it is time to rectify and realize that we are an entity of 15 billion years dependent on our living planet.
Source: Unknown Mexico No. 211 / September 1994
