| Sierra Madre de Oaxaca pine-oak forests | |
|---|---|
Cerro San Felipe, located in the Parque Nacional Benito Juarez is the only federally protected area of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, and is important as the watersource for the city of Oaxaca |
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| Ecology | |
| Biome | Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests |
| Borders |
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| Bird species | 447[1] |
| Mammal species | 176[1] |
| Geography | |
| Area | 14,300 km2 (5,500 sq mi) |
| Country | Mexico |
| Conservation | |
| Habitat loss | 15.078%[1] |
| Protected | 5.25%[1] |
The Sierra Madre de Oaxaca pine-oak forests is an ecoregion of southern Mexico, in the Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests biome. It occupies the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, which lies mostly within the state of Oaxaca, extending north into Puebla and Veracruz states. It is one of a chain of pine-oak forest ecoregions extending along the American Cordillera from Arizona and Baja California in the north to Nicaragua in the south.
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The ecoregion covers an area of 14,300 square kilometers (5,500 sq mi), lying above 1600 meters elevation. The Sierra Madre de Oaxaca runs northeast-southwest, extending 300 kilometers from Pico de Orizaba in the northeast to extends to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the southeast. Peaks in the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca average 2,500 meters in elevation, with some peaks exceeding 3,000 meters. The Gulf Coastal Plain lies to the east, and a series of river valleys separate the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca from the Sierra Madre del Sur to the southwest and the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt to the northwest. The range intercepts humid air moving west from the Gulf of Mexico, and the ecoregion is bounded on the east by the humid Oaxacan montane forests, which lie below 1600 meters elevation. To the east, the xeric Tehuacan Valley matorral occupies the Tehuacan valley to the northwest, the Jalisco dry forests occupy the upper basin of the Santo Domingo River, which lies in the rain shadow of the Sierra, and the Southern Pacific dry forests lie to the south along the Pacific coast, extending into the upper basin of the Tehuantepec River and the Valley of Oaxaca. The dry forests separate the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca pine-oak forests from the Sierra Madre del Sur pine-oak forests to the southwest.
The vegetation varies with elevation and exposure. The predominant vegetation types are pine forest, pine-oak forest, oak forest, and cloud forest. These forests have a great diversity of bromeliads, orchids, ferns, pines and oaks.
The forests of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca are one of the last refuges for the Jaguar and Puma in densely populated Mexico.
The Pine-Oak forests of the sierra Madre of Oaxaca have been inhabited for millennia by a multitude of indigenous cultures, mainly the Mazatec, Zapotec, Mixe, Cuicatec and Chinantec.
Some of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca forests are some of the best conserved forests in Mexico. Unlike many other virgin forest areas of Mexico, only a tiny fraction of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca Forests are protected by any State or Federal government in the Parque Nacional Benito Juarez, just north of Oaxaca City. Instead most conservation in the Sierra is controlled by indigenous communities.For example, Santiago Comaltepec's vast expanse of cloud forest is considered some of the best conserved cloud forests in the world. Many communities, notably Ixtlán de Juárez and the Pueblo Mancomunados, among others, strive to conserve their forest through projects including sustainable forestry and selective logging, ecotourism and education projects, and the prohibition of private property within their communities (thus hampering unsustainable development and industry by foreign or outside agents).
Despite the efforts of most Sierra communities, the forests are still dangerously under threat by foreign investment. The Oaxaca state government, under Governor Ulises Ruiz is persistent in trying to give mining and logging commissions to foreign companies.