Ecociencia Gt

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Promoting ecotourism in the metropolitan zones´protected areas of the Guatemalan departments of Guatemala and Sacatepéquez, and encouraging local and foreign citizens to respect, value and preserve them is the goal of the touristic campaign´s launch “Guate has everything.”

Indeed, Guatemala has everything because it is one of the 19 megadiverse countries in the world, which are considered to hold more than 70 percent of the planet's biological diversity; it means, they have a wide variety of living beings in their territory.

A sample of this mega-diversity is found in the Ecological Park Alux Trails (Parque Ecológico Senderos de Alux, in Spanish) that is located within the Protective Forest Reserve of Alux Mountain Spring, in the municipality of San Lucas, department of Sacatepéquez. This mountain range is an important source of water supply for Guatemala City and the surrounding municipalities of the lower basin. It produces 21.8 million cubic meters of water per year, which supplies more than 300 thousand people.

The ecosystemic services that provide the mountain range are very useful.

Other sites that make up the 27 protected areas distributed between Guatemala and Sacatepéquez and that will be promoted as examples that #GuateHasEverything are the United Nations National Park, the Amatitlán Lake Basin and the Pacaya and Agua volcanoes.

According to the representatives of the promoting institutions of this campaign: The National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP, by its acronym in Spanish) and the Authority for the Sustainable Management of Lake Amatitlán (AMSA, by its acronym in Spanish), it is important that Guatemalans and citizens from other countries contribute to caring and making a sustainable use of the protected area´s natural resources that they visit. By doing that, the quality of life of many communities is improved as well as the maintenance of the ecosystems and the services that they provide, such as water, food, shelter, raw material and leisure areas.

Let´s walk the Alux trails!
I like trees not only as energy sources -providers of firewood, for example- but for all the environmental services they provide to people and all the habitat they generate for different species of animals and plants," says agronomist David Illescas Turuy, guide of the walk through the Alux Trails, during the launch day of the #GuateHasEverything campaign.

Native to the village of San Felipe de Jesús, in the municipality of Antigua Guatemala, Sacatepéquez, Illescas is currently a technician of the CONAP´s Guatemalan System of Protected Areas; and he has four years working in the exuberant Alux mountain range.

His love for nature is remarkable in the explanations he offers about the plants that are observed or the bird songs that are heard during the tour. When talking on each plant or animal species, Illescas not only cites its common but also scientific name. It is something that impresses especially those who hardly know the common name of any plant.

The engineer David Illescas was the tour guide during the visit to the Alux Trails.

In these 5,372 hectares equivalent to 53.72 square kilometers, there are 24 species of plants included in the List of Endangered Species for Guatemala. Four of them are oaks: Quercus brachystachys, Quercus tristis, Quercus peduncularis and Quercus conspersa,” he explains.

Illescas approaches a tree and adds: “This oak tree has moss and lichens. Lichens are the union between algae and fungi, he says. Then, it points out an ilamo (Alnus arguta) in which there are lichens, ferns and also a plant belonging to the Bromiliaceae family, Tillandsia gendre. This tillandsia, he indicates, feeds on the humidity of the air and sunlight; on average, it retains a liter of water and seven species of lizards depend on this liquid, because in that water they deposit their eggs. The plant lives about 30 years; at 25, it gives its only flower and the remaining years it  remains only releasing seeds,” he adds.

This tree has a Tillandsia on it.

While walking, Illescas tells that among the most observed and heard birds in the area are xaras (Cyanocitta stelleri); tucanetas (Aulacorhincus prasinus), chejes or carpenters (Campephilus guatemalensis); quetzalitos (Troncon collaris) and cenzontles (Turdus plebejus), whose name in Náhuatl means 700 sounds, because the different ways in which they usually sing.

Further on, he finds the called “cheese leaves” (Roldana sp.) called like that because of their softness and because they were used to wrap artisanal cheese.

These are the cheese leaves.

According to data from CONAP, in this Protective Forest Reserve of Alux Mountain Spring, which encompasses the municipalities of Mixco, San Pedro and San Juan Sacatepéquez in the department of Guatemala, and the municipalities of San Lucas and Santiago in the department of Sacatepéquez, there are 65 water sources. Its forest cover is mixed, with conifers (trees that grow in the shape of a cone and also produce seeds with this shape); and broad-leaved or broad-leaved trees. There are 31 timber species and 158 of non-timber flora; 27 of them are edible, 66 medicinal and 26 ornamental.

The mammal species reported are 15; 10 of them are bats; there are 53 bird species; 9 reptile species and 16 butterflies species.

A new home for rescued animals
In this mountain range, 140 rescued animal species have also been released. Among them there are foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), raccoons (Procyon lotor) and tacuacines (Didelphys marsupialis), which come to burst into houses, because the destruction of their ecosystems in order to build lots or other land uses that have left them homeless, says engineer Víctor Mazariegos, director of the CONAP metropolitan region, who also participated in the tour. 

This racoon was released in the forest the day that was launched the Guate has everything! campaign.

“Preventing the occurrence of more cases like those will be possible insofar as people are aware of the importance of preserving nature; if we avoid illegal logging, habitat´s destruction and the hunting of animals in danger of extinction. We must all add to the conservation and protection of natural resources," he concluded.