Now the jungle is disappearing, only 10 percent remain virgin, but local groups here in the city of Lacanjá are trying to curb deforestation. 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. - Didier Boremanse Deforestation and the Lacandon Maya Recent deforestation only a few kms. They also state that the agricultural methods do not help alleviate the migrants’ economic system as they can only farm a plot for a couple of harvests before the soil is depleted.The Zapatistas have accused environmentalists of siding with the government and corporate interests, and the Lacandons are too small in number to challenge the other groups, despite being the legal owners of much of the reserve. There has been some exploration and pumping in the area, however it seems unlikely that there is far more. It evicted some The Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve was established in 1978 as Mexico's first biosphere reserve.It was financed in 1994 by the World Bank's Global Environmental Fund.There is a significant difference in vegetation between the reserve areas and the jungle outside of it.The Zapatistas claim that as indigenous farmers, they are the best protectors of the rainforest, and that they want to turn Montes Azules into an “Indian Farmers’ Reserve”, a patchwork of farms and jungle.This pits them against the Lacandon Maya and environmentalist groups who state that the jungle cannot take any more farming. El Chiflón is located 53 km west of Comitán de Domínguez formed by the San Vicente Rivers. The water fall from a height of over seventy meters surrounded by steeply sloped hills. A cascade after it is called the Velo de Novia. These include indigenous groups of Chiapas such as the Until the early 18th century, the Lacandon Jungle and bordering areas of Guatemala were occupied by the now-extinct The Lacandons are descendants of the ancient Maya.

The Zapatistas claim that the government is hiding the presence of oil in the area as they try to force them and the indigenous people who support them off the lands. Tourism helps.On the other hand, attempts were made to convert the southern Lacandons, to no avail, in the early However, although the religious took some natives with them, the hardships of the road, the disagreement of customs and the weather forced them to allow the withdrawal of the indigenous people to their places of origin.One of the first researchers to live with the Lacandons was the French ethnologist Jacques Soustelle, who in his writings stated that the Lacandons lived from hunting with bows and arrows and from The future is not looking good for the last remaining tropical rainforest in southern Mexico.As Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo reports from Chiapas state, more forest is being lost every year, despite conservation efforts.Write CSS OR LESS and hit save.
Of the remaining forest, about 5% is still lost per year in spite of conservation efforts.

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. There were some attempts to evict settlers from the Reserve, especially from the thirty two undocumented settlements, but it was met by fierce resistance by the Zapatistas.In 2005, some Zapatista allied communities decided to relocate on their own, while still opposing forced resettlement. The Lacandon in Chiapas is also home to a number of important Mayan archaeological sites including Despite the fact that much of the area has been reduced to a patchwork of clearings for cattle ranches and peasant communities,Its size and biodiversity has designated it as a "biodiversity hotspot" by the Washington DC based environmental group There are two major attractions within the Chiapas portion of this rainforest, the El Chiflón Waterfall and the Gruta de San Francisco cave. These caves were considered sacred in the pre Hispanic period as passages to the underworld. The Gruta de San Francisco is located in the La Trinitaria municipality near the community of Santa María. By the 1940s, much of the old growth forest had already been destroyed.Much of the destruction of the rainforest has occurred through In the latter 1970s, the government changed its policies in regards to the Lacandon, establishing the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve.
photo by R. Johnston "For a people whose mythology describes the whole earth as covered with jungle, to destroy the jungle is to destroy their world." The deforestation of the Lacandon in Mexico has been dramatically high, with the rate increasing over the past decades. The cave is also home to millions of bat which emerge at night to feed in the surrounding jungle.The jungle is also home to some of Mexico's most numerous and impressive archaeological sites, all of which belong to the Yaxchilan flourished in the 8th and 9th centuries. Now the jungle is disappearing, only 10 percent remain virgin, but local groups here in the city of Lacanjá are trying to curb deforestation… After 1997, the average deforestation rate accelerated to nearly five percent and, by 2007, the tropical forests of Marqués de Comillas, a municipality in Mexico’s Lacandon jungle, were disappearing rapidly. It is estimated that only 10% of virgin rainforest still exists with the rest having been strip-mined, logged and more. CTRL + SPACE for auto-complete.Over 90% of Mexico’s Lacandon Jungle deforested (video)

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