Sierra de las Minas Biosphere Reserve
by Richard Mahler

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One of the last truly wild places in Guatemala is a two-mile-tall, 30-mile-wide, east-west mountain range that runs for roughly 100 miles through the country's southeast highlands. The mountains encompass parts of the Baja Verapaz and Izabal departments, beginning about 50 air miles east of Guatemala City.

Saving the ecologically dynamic wilderness of the rugged Sierra de las Minas has been a primary focus of the Guatemalan conservation group Defensores de la Naturaleza (Defenders of Nature). Much of these mountain lands have been given a protective status through the decisive actions of Defensores and the Guatemalan government, with help from Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, Swedish Children's Rainforest, and several other nonprofit organizations.

Although human intervention is now critical to the range's long-term protection, a great deal of the range's habitat has been protected from agriculture by its distinctive natural features: steep hillsides, shallow soils, and fickle weather. Because the heart of the mountains are composed of jade and marble, however, mining has been carried out here for centuries (thus the name, which means Mountain Range of the Mines).

Created in 1990, the 143,000-acre reserve offers only limited access to casual visitors pending approval of a long-term management plan. Accommodations and services are very limited, although improving year by year. Meanwhile, roads into the area are so rough as to be virtually impassible during bad weather.

In 1994 a 20-mile wilderness trail was completed through the western end of the Sierra, between San Agustin Acasaguastlan, east of El Rancho, and Chelasco, part the reserve's northern boundary. The trek requires overnight camping and two long days of strenuous hiking (the first day is mostly uphill, the second mostly down). The trail winds through some of the most pristine territory remaining in Guatemala (with greater biodiversity than even the Peten, farther north). The trail's first trekkers reported many animal sightings and fantastic bird life, including numerous quetzals. Large cloud forests dominate the peaks of the Sierra de las Minas, interspersed with stands of bamboo and moss-covered hardwoods. Recommended times to visit are the months of January through March, which have lowest rainfall. In any season, this hike is recommended for only well-equipped, fit, and adventurous individuals.

Protection of the Sierra is particularly important because it contains an estimated 60 percent of Guatemala's remaining cloud forest habitat. Because of its geographic isolation, forbidding terrain, and wide range of elevation (from 15 feet to 10,050 feet above sea level), the Sierra is home to at least 885 species of birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles--fully 70 percent of all the species from these groups that are known to exist in Guatemala and neighboring Belize.

Forest experts refer to these mountains as "an important tropical gene bank of conifer endoplasm," noting that 17 distinct species of evergreens are found here and nowhere else on earth. The area is thus considered an irreplaceable seed resource for reforestation and agroforestry throughout the tropics.

Besides its robust population of diverse flora and fauna, the Sierra de las Minas plays an important role in providing fresh, clean water to the many farms and villages in valleys below. More than 63 permanent rivers drain the reserve, making it the country's biggest single water resource. This is especially important because the area southeast of the Sierra -- the Motagua Valley -- is a rain-shadow desert heavily dependent on irrigation. The dense forests in the northern part of the reserve and on mountain summits naturally filter rainwater, prevent topsoil erosion, and inhibit river siltation.

The reserve's managers are engaged in an environmental education program designed to persuade local community leaders of the project's value and to teach soil conservation techniques to area farmers, many of whom are Kekchi Maya. The goal is to discourage their ongoing migration into the forest (for hunting and milpa farming) and to establish sustainable agricultural activities instead. Tourism is considered an important alternative to such destruction, therefore low-level visitation may help encourage local residents to protect their forests.

For more information about the Sierra de las Minas Biosphere Reserve, contact Defensores de la Naturaleza, 7a. Avenida y 13a. Calle, Zone 9, Guatemala City (tel. 332-5064) or through one of the group's local offices in Chilasco or Salama. Guides can be hired in these towns, or in San Agustin Acadaguastlan. All are accessible via public bus. There are basic accommodations and restaurants in Salama and Pusilha, near the Mario Dary Quetzal Reserve.

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