BELIZE
GRAB A FRONT-ROW SEAT TO INCREDIBLE
TROPICAL WILDLIFE
Nature scored a big win recently in the race to preserve
one of the largest remaining tropical rainforests in the
Americas. In April 2021, a coalition of conservation
partners, led by the Nature Conservancy, purchased
236,000 acres of tropical forest in northwestern Belize
to create the Belize Maya Forest Reserve. Along with
saving some of the most biodiverse forest in the world
from denuding and development, the new protected area,
which is contiguous with the neighbouring Rio Bravo
Conservation and Management Area (RBCMA), closes
a huge gap in a vital wildlife corridor that runs from
southeast Mexico through Guatemala and into Belize.
The combined reserve, which protects nearly a
tenth of Belize’s land area, safeguards and connects
essential habitat for an amazing variety of endemic
and endangered creatures, including the tapir, Belize’s
national animal; black howler monkeys; more than 400
species of bird; and some of Central America’s largest
surviving populations of jaguar. For now, ecotourism
activities are based in the more established RBCMA,
which has two lodges and offers guided expeditions.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVEL (US)
NORTHERN MINNESOTA
GAZE UP AT DISTANT GALAXIES IN ONE OF THE
WORLD’S L ARGEST DARK-SK Y RESERVESThousands upon thousands of stars dazzle above
northern Minnesota. This remote region bordering
the Canadian province of Ontario has little to no light
pollution, and residents want to keep it that way.
The Heart of the Continent Dark Skies Initiative
is a cross-border effort to create one of the planet’s
largest dark-sky destinations. Two stellar spots are in
Minnesota: Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
(BWCAW), the world’s largest International Dark
Sky Sanctuary at more than a million acres; and
neighbouring Voyageurs National Park, the state’s
first International Dark Sky Park. Adjoining Quetico
Provincial Park, in Ontario, earned International Dark
Sky Park status a year later, in early 2021.
“The preservation of darkness at places like Voyageurs
National Park not only provides wondrous views and
ecological benefits to wildlife,” says Christina Hausman
Rhode, executive director of the nonprofit Voyageurs
Conservancy, “It also allows us to see the skies as they
were hundreds of years ago, used for navigation and
storytelling by the voyageurs and indigenous Ojibwe.”
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVEL (US)Nature & wildlife
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