Guarding Belize's Last Broadleaf Forest Corridor

Ya'axché Conservation Trust, founded in 1998, manages conservation across the Maya Golden Landscape in southern Belize's Toledo District, a roughly 275,000-hectare mosaic of protected forest, farmland, and villages that forms the last contiguous broadleaf forest corridor between the Maya Mountains and the sea. On behalf of the Belizean government it manages the 100,000-acre Bladen Nature Reserve and the Maya Mountain North Forest Reserve, plus its own Golden Stream Corridor Preserve, protecting habitat for jaguars, harpy eagles, and dozens of other threatened species. It also works with Maya and Q'eqchi' farming communities on sustainable cacao and agroforestry livelihoods.