WCS in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean
Middle America links two continents—historically, culturally, and biologically. This long, narrow isthmus between the Americas is home to a treasure of biodiversity and a vast complexity of landscapes. Habitats range from cool, mountain cloud forests to rainforests to arid lowlands. The Central American isthmus makes up only one-tenth of one percent of the Earth’s surface, yet it supports seven percent of our planet’s species. To save wildlife and wild lands in this region, WCS conducts research on wide-ranging “landscape” species and conserves habitat by establishing national parks, international corridors, and buffer zones.

The Human Aspect
The Central American isthmus stretches only 1,100 miles, but is divided into seven sovereign states—each with unique cultural, economic, and political circumstances. The region is remarkably varied ecologically, and also heavily populated. Many of Mesoamerica’s people struggle with the burden of poverty. The region has endured 400 years of agricultural expansion, aggravated recently by expanding municipalities and civic turmoil. In this scenario, strategic planning for biodiversity and ecological maintenance is a great challenge.

Threats
Park management in Central America began in earnest in the 1970s, long after large swaths of prime wildlife habitat had been overrun by farms and plantations. Mountain colonization has destroyed the water-collecting functions of highland forests, leaving lowlands and cities at risk of losing essential water resources. Fortunately, some large, lowland forests survived early agricultural expansion. Several of these forests straddle international boundaries. The remaining woodlands of the interior mountains, combined with these lowland forests, represent the hope and promise of contemporary conservation in Central America. But they remain highly vulnerable to modern-day colonization.

WCS Activities
In every country in Central America, WCS has supported scientists researching the natural history of birds, mammals, and reptiles, and conducting important marine studies. These scientific endeavors contribute to conservation planning and priority-setting in the region. Site-specific work continues today, but is now applied within a comprehensive framework. Beginning in 1991, WCS introduced the innovative concept of integrating conservation initiatives among all Central American countries and Mexico by incorporating biological corridors into conventional park development programs. This notion has been adopted by governments and agencies in the region, and has garnered massive financial support from the international community. With the support of WCS, today biologists, park planners, and some politicians seek ways to link parks and protected areas together with greenways. In some cases, this also binds neighboring countries together for the welfare of all.

Important Next Steps

• Continue to urge the governmental entities in Central America to move ahead with the regional corridor system. With the advent of such development plans as the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP)—an industrial corridor for Mexico and Central America—the possibility that remaining blocks of wilderness will be broken up is increasing.
• Remain active at large, long-term WCS sites, replicating successful projects where applicable, refining landscape-scale conservation tools, and working with local communities to manage resources.
• Further integrate projects in Guatemala and Belize, and launch initiatives in Mexico to address conservation of the great Selva Maya—a forest that stretches across all three neighboring countries.
• Assist the government of Costa Rica in consolidating the national array of parks, enhancing this arrangement with connecting corridors as needed. The effectiveness of this new park system will be evaluated by monitoring the behavior of jaguars, their prey, and certain other large vertebrates.
• Continue studying the jaguar as a landscape species in Panama, a country whose elongated geography makes it a key state in the maintenance of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.
• Work as part of a three-way consortium in Nicaragua to help develop management plans for large, vital expanses of habitat on the east coast in what is known as the "Atlantic Corridor."
• Expand reptile, flamingo and other wildlife conservation programs in the coastal ecosystems of Cuba and other Caribbean islands.
• Conserve coral reefs and marine biodiversity in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.