Conservation Value:

The small country of Belize (half the size of Nova Scotia) has the lowest population density of all countries in Latin America (16 people/km² – less than half that of the U.S.).  The Belize Central Corridor is comprised of a great variety of tropical habitats, including rivers, marshlands, pine savanna, and gallery forest.  These are home to many species of threatened fauna and flora including jaguar, tapir, white-lipped peccary, Morelet’s crocodile, yellow-headed parrot, and aplomado falcon. 

Threats:

The Belize Central Corridor is bisected by the one of the country’s three major roadways, the Western Highway.  In recent decades, development has increasingly fragmented the natural corridor linking hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest between the north and the south.  Current threats include unsustainable hunting and poaching, illegal logging, human-induced fires, and habitat conversion for cattle grazing and agriculture.

Actions & Results:

In collaboration with the Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Center, ICFC contributed $25,000 toward the purchase of a 383-hectare parcel within a large patchwork of other privately protected areas totaling 1,147 hectares.