[6] Prominent karstic features within the Mountains include the Chiquibul Spring and Cave System, the Vaca Plateau, the Southern and Northern Boundary Faults, and possibly an aquifer contiguous with that of the Yucatán Peninsula.

[19] For instance, in 2008 an estimated 1,000‍–‍1,500 xateros i.e. fishtail palm foragers were operating in the region, and by 2011 some 13,500‍–‍20,000 acres had been cleared for various agricultural activities, thereby severing the ecologically important contiguity of Belizean forests to the Guatemalan Selva Maya.

[20] Furthermore, unlicensed interlopers often hunt for sustenance during their extended incursions, leading to worrying declines in wildlife populations, such as that of the white-lipped peccary, which has been extirpated from 'was once the species' primary stronghold in Belize [i.e.

[22] The recent construction of the hydroelectric Chalillo Dam in the Mountains, for instance, 'sparked international controversy for its widespread ecological effects,' including the inundation of 2,400 acres of forested and riparian ecosystems, and exposure of downstream villages to significant pollutants in 2009 and 2011.

[23] The Mountains and their abutting foothills and plains, considered as a north-easterly trending structural uplift of Palaeozoic bedrock, constitute a geologic or physiographic province in the Maya Block of the North American Plate.

[34] Geologic mapping and dating of rocks in the Maya Mountains have 'led to a variety of interpretations and eventually to puzzling discrepancies between reported field relations, age of fossils, and geochronologic data.

[28][41][note 20] The Mountains are thought to have remained sparsely populated, and culturally and economically isolated, until 600‍–‍830 CE, during the Late Classic, when the region experienced major demographic growth, possibly peaking in the 8th century.

The Maya Mountains and associated foothills contain a number of important Mayan ruins including the sites of Lubaantun, Nim Li Punit, Cahal Pech and Chaa Creek.

[46][60] The earliest conservation efforts in Guatemala are thought to have been the 1921 and 1945 Leyes Forestales, leading to the 1955 establishment of the country's first protected areas, the Atitlán and Rio Dulce National Parks.

The captains had been commissioned by the superintendent of colonial Belize, Edward Marcus Despard, and the visiting Spanish commissary, Enrique de Grimarest, to discover the source of the Sibun River, so as to ascertain the limits of the British settlement under the 1786 Convention of London.