Selva Zoque
[3] Average monthly temperatures in most areas range between 18 °C and 22 °C, and annual rainfall between 500 and 2,500 mm, with high humidity throughout most of the region although there are dry interior valleys.
Valuable plants include the tropical red cedar (Cedrela odorata) and bigleaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla).
is an important source of revenue for the local people, with the ornamental leaves harvested carefully to avoid killing the plant.
[6] Types of vegetation cover include:[5] The forest forms a vital biological corridor between North and Central America and has very diverse zoology, lying at the conjunction between the Nearctic and Neotropical realms and spanning a range of montane and lowland habitats.
[5] Highly threatened species include jaguar, Geoffroy's spider monkey, white-lipped peccary, horned guan, resplendent quetzal and harpy eagle.
[3] Before the Mexican colonial period, the area was inhabited by the Chima, a Zoque people believed to be descendants of the Olmec.
[8] From 1731 to 1747, the region around Santa María Chimalapa was an important source of giant pines, used for masts and beams by the Spanish navy.
[9] Despite continued contacts with the colonialists and prospectors, in their relatively inaccessible terrain the Chimas in the forest region were largely undisturbed until the later half of the nineteenth century, when the government started selling off concessions to exploit their "vacant" lands for timber and grazing.
[7] In the early 1970s, the federal government launched a program in the Uxpanapa region to resettle small farmers displaced by the Cerro de Oro Dam, bulldozing and burning large areas of the forest to open it up for farming.
Some of the new arrivals engaged in small scale farming and hunting, while others moved into more destructive activities such as ranching, illegal logging of valuable tree species and cultivation of narcotics.
Other plans include creating coffee plantations and cattle corridors, expanding production of beans, maize and chili and exploiting the bio-genetic resources of native medicinal plants.
[4] In June 2008 the State of Oaxaca was again proposing construction of a storage dam in the Rio El Corte Basin in the Chimalapa sub-region, with the potential to irrigate 100,000 hectares of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and to supply water to the Salina Cruz Refinery.
[4] The local government officials and their families are dedicated to sell tracks of virgin forest to create ranch operations and destroy the forest, and use the money to help the Zapatista warlords, they use their influences inside the state to legalize the plots of lands that they sold, this is evidenced in the new town called Arroyo Dos Arcos, deep into federally protected land.
The Maderas rainforest conservancy has been active in the area, seeking to prevent further fires and encourage sustainable land use.
[2] However, it is difficult to strike a balance between protecting this unique environment, respecting the rights of the traditional inhabitants and improving the economy to eliminate poverty, malnutrition and disease.
