No fog-cloaked landscape, no forest trolls, no mysterious mists. Thanks to the generous support of our Board members and other supporters who cover all of our operating expenses, Rainforest Trust is able to allocate 100% of donations to conservation action. Again, the day is hot and the forest is dry. There is also the risk that they can be cleared for farmland or ranches, as livestock subsidies incentivize communities to cut them down.

Sosa has tracked similar remnant groups of bats, and a few years ago an amphibian expert at the Institute named Eduardo Pineda made a remarkable discovery.

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By integrating this area into the national/state system of protected areas, it becomes eligible to apply for funds that support the management plan. Tropical montane cloud forests are among the most vulnerable terrestrial ecosystems to climate change owing to their restricted climatic requirements and their narrow and fragmented distribution. The researchers suggest that forestry legislation should include a definition of “secondary forest vegetation.” “This will allow the owners of these lands to be able to access various support and to implement sustainable forest management practices,” they said. Sign up for our newsletter and enter to win the second edition of our book, Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day.No purchase necessary. There is hope, she says.

Find the perfect cloud forest mexico stock photo. This year, determined to experience these fantastic foggy forests once and for all, I bought a ticket to the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, in Chiapas, for the beginning of the rainy season in May. About 550 kilometers (340 miles) northwest of San Cristóbal is the city of Xalapa, Veracruz, once similarly enshrouded in perennial fog. One of the biggest threats to Mexican cloud forests at the moment is deforestation, typically to make way for coffee plantations and increases in population, as well as rising temperatures that make the all-important clouds disappear before they reach the forests.

In addition to the forests’ branches, leaves, mosses, and epiphytes capturing moisture from clouds, they also play an active role in creating those clouds. Looking out over what used to be thousands of hectares of cloud forest, all we see is pine trees and farms.Cloud forests are unique ecosystems—throwbacks to the last ice age—that exist within a narrow band of physical and climatic conditions. And the lands above the cloud forests aren’t exactly vacant, either. Probably not as fast as humans,” Williams says. Beyond is the horizon—and a glorious sun rising to light the whole valley in a vibrant green.

Cloud forests are also very vulnerable ecosystems. Ice and tundra retreated to Alaska and Canada, chased closely behind by dense conifer forests, while lush forests of oak, hickory, ash, and dozens of familiar American plants spread throughout the Eastern United States.Meanwhile, down in Mexico and Central America, anemic tropical forest came roaring back, flooding into the region like batter poured over a hot skillet, replacing the deciduous forest with jungle.

However, in Mexico, the expansion of livestock and agriculture has increased their vulnerability.
If you were to walk through the forests of Eastern Mexico during that time, it would have felt a lot like the Berkshires or the Ozarks today—with oaks, beech, and walnuts everywhere you looked.But it was not destined to stay that way. This approach will allow for the use of diverse species with different ecological functions.In addition, the team points to the urgent need to design management strategies that include the people who own and manage these forests who “have been marginalized” from forest management systems.

What they’re finding could help preserve these forests—and offer a glimpse of what conservation may look like in an ever-warming world.Seventeen thousand years ago, during the height of the last great ice age, glaciers and tundra covered the northern United States.


Research suggests that as much as 84 percent of cloud forest species can live in such coffee plantations.Likewise, biologists have found pockets of cloud forest creatures like pink-headed warblers and even quetzals living in unusual habitats downslope from cloud forests, perhaps waiting for a time when they can return to the chilly boughs of their traditional habitats.

Activities such as illegal logging and agricultural encroachment have caused forest cover fragmentation and decline. Around us I hear dueling mountain trogons staking out breeding grounds, and a slate-throated redstart (We reach the ridge and find a glorious break in the trees. Writer Erik Vance treks into the cloud forest near El Zapotal, Veracruz.

Reach into the thick leaf litter on the ground and you might pull out an acorn the size of your fist.