Nowhere to go? “I think that what we are seeing is not anymore what we used to call cloud forest,” says Tarin Toledo, a forestry expert at the Institute. The trees are there, as are some of the orchids and mosses. And offer tranquility among "living fossils.". The Biodiversity Heritage Library works collaboratively to make biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community. With a little maintenance, today it’s a young but lush, vibrant cloud forest, despite the lack of clouds. Elevated and sometimes chilly San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas was famed for once being surrounded by cloud forests (thanks to deforestation there is only a small cloud forest region remaining). The clouds that envelope the slopes of these mountains are fed by the Gulf of Mexico, 55 kilometers (34 miles) away. Sometimes you just have to know where to look. I will display a few scenic images of that region on this page. And the lands above the cloud forests aren’t exactly vacant, either. And while technically, these are cloud forest trees, the forest is not as diverse as it should be. The El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve is located in the south in the Sierra Madres. From left: although listed as near-threatened, this tree frog is relatively common in the cloud forests around Veracruz; a blue-crowned motmot seeks shelter from the rain in the lower branches of a cloud forest tree near Xalapa; brightly colored velvet mites like this one emerge from the forest litter after a rain to hunt for other small invertebrates. If you were to walk through the forests of Eastern Mexico during that time, it would have felt a lot like the Berkshires or the Ozarks today—with oaks, beech, and walnuts everywhere you looked. Moist air travels across the flatlands and condenses into clouds as it travels up the foothills of Pico de Orizaba, the fourth largest mountain in North America. Which is tougher than it sounds. Meanwhile, down in Mexico and Central America, anemic tropical forest came roaring back, flooding into the region like batter poured over a hot skillet, replacing the deciduous forest with jungle. Toledo says this is one sign that a forest is disappearing. This is the real crux with climate change, not only in cloud forests, but in ecosystems around the world. Also known as water forests, cloud forests are moist, evergreen and typically tropical forests which are regularly coated with clouds and mist that allows their unique characteristics to flourish. Another, the Townsend’s salamander (Parvimolge townsendi) of Veracruz, was considered extinct as of 2008. The core areas, typified by core So scientists are scrambling to understand not only the threats facing cloud forests but, more basically, how they function. And it’s not just the trees. Williams, who is thin and lively, with exuberant, often erratic mannerisms, is a passionate advocate for the return of the cloud forests. He was working in a forest not far from Xalapa when he flipped over a patch of leaves to expose a small, unremarkable salamander crawling in the cool damp below. “If you don’t have anywhere to move, it doesn’t matter.”. It’s hard enough for me to find one now, in the heart of what should be the rainy season. Life in the clouds. It ranks as one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet and encompasses approximately 300,000 acres. The Monteverde golden toad (Incilius periglenes), a cloud forest animal from Costa Rica, is considered by some to be the first creature to have gone extinct because of climate change. In addition to the forests’ branches, leaves, mosses, and epiphytes capturing moisture from clouds, they also play an active role in creating those clouds. In Mexico, their canopies are home to an eclectic mix of temperate and tropical flora and fauna—like the highland guan (Penelopina nigra), the Veracruz tree frog (Charadrahyla taeniopus), and dozens of tiny orchids—and have become crucial habitat and breeding grounds for hundreds of rare, endemic animals. This waterfall in Veracruz, Mexico illustrates the role that cloud forests play in producing fresh water for communities downslope. In the El Cielo Biosphere, you’ll be able to venture into a cloud forest that might just change your opinion on the state as a whole. Noah Berger is in his element amid smoke and flames. To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK", A cloud forest in the El Triunfo Park, Chiapas. We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements. Probably not as fast as humans,” Williams says. If the cloud forests migrate uphill, they will quickly come into conflict with potato farmers, who plant their crops in the higher, chillier terrain. A fine mist falls just at the treetops. The cloudy, wet, and generally difficult terrain of the world's Tropical Montane Cloud Forests (TMCF) has not only made them hydrologically and ecologically unique, but has historically given them some de facto protection compared to other tropical forests. El Triunfo’s cloud forest is reported to be one of the most extensive remnants in the country and contains the greatest diversity of tree species in North and Central America. Alarmingly, in a 2011 survey, scientists found that almost half of cloud forest tree species are in trouble, 15 percent critically so. The state of Chiapas in southern Mexico contains an extraordinarily rich biological legacy and is home to a large and growing indigenous population. And the water coming out of these chilly forests is substantially cleaner than other reservoirs, because colder temperatures and less suspended material mean fewer parasites. Here, just outside town, tucked in a dense jungle valley, is the National Institute for Ecology, one of Mexico’s leading research centers and one of the best places to study cloud forests. Likewise, biologists have found pockets of cloud forest creatures like pink-headed warblers and even quetzals living in unusual habitats downslope from cloud forests, perhaps waiting for a time when they can return to the chilly boughs of their traditional habitats. So, if you’re interested in anything from big cats to birds, insects to amphibians, a visit to a Mexican cloud forest is practically compulsory. El Triunfo’s cloud forest is reported to be one of the most extensive remnants in the country and contains the greatest diversity of tree species in North and Central America. What I learned shocked me. section of upp er cloud forest in the El T riunfo Biosphere Reser ve, Chiapas, Mexico. Tillandsia imperialis is a common cloud forest epiphyte that is often used by locals in the construction of arches that decorate churches during religious festivities. It’s going to be another beautiful, clear day. Thus were born the cloud forests, some of the world’s most haunting and fascinating ecosystems. The Resplendent Quetzal is found only in the cloud-forests in the highlands of Central America including (Chiapas, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama (Skutch 1944). Cloud forests in Africa, for example, are very different to those of Mexico’s Veracruz state, which in turn are different to those of the states of Guerrero, Jalisco and Chiapas. Beyond is the horizon—and a glorious sun rising to light the whole valley in a vibrant green. As a region, the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, was between 1998 and 2005, the region that suffered the greatest impact related to climate change in the form of massive landslides. Structure and Floristic Composition in a Successional Gradient in a Cloud Forest in Chiapas, Southern Mexico 141 3.3 Early growth A total of 43 species and above 50% of the total genera were found in the 20-25 years old successional stage. 28871, Alcal´ a de Henares, Madrid, Spain.´ Duncan J. Golicher We start up, heading past farm fields and scattered houses until we reach a series of switchbacks up a steep slope to a prominent ridgeline. Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. With a shock, he realized it was a Townsend’s salamander, a creature that—until that very moment—was considered extinct. FIND OUT MORE. As we walk, we hear a pink-headed warbler (Ergaticus versicolor) and a black thrush (Turdus infuscatus), and spot a garnet-throated hummingbird (Lamprolaima rhami) probing a dazzling pink bromeliad. Toledo says no. Coffee from a collection of small landholders is grown near one of the world’s most biodiverse forest reserves, El Triunfo Biosphere. “The animals that we saw before aren’t there,” says Federico Escobar, an expert in cloud forest invertebrates at the Institute who has been revisiting sites that were last surveyed in 1995, and is documenting the changes. Discover why the pristine cloud forests of Mexico are so special and learn why it's so important to conserve the wild places of the earth. From left: The curled “fiddlehead” of a cloud forest fern about to open; ferns, which are plentiful in Veracruz’s cloud forests, are regularly harvested for flower arrangements; one of the many native cloud-forest plants that locals collect and use as food and medicine. The demise of Arabica's birthplace would be a catastrophe for the industry. In Mexico, however, people have lived in and around cloud forests for millennia. The Sierra Madre de Chiapas where El Triunfo is located is one of the regions in the country that receives the most rainfall. A version of this story originally appeared on bioGraphic.com. The moist, fertile undergrowth of a cloud forest is perfect for their delicate skin, which must be wet for them to breathe. The spider assemblages of a cloud forest reserve in Chiapas, Mexico, were studied to analyze influence of environmental variables (forest stand structure, temperature and relative humidity) and their temporal variation, on the distribution, abundance, species richness and assemblage structure of spiders. “Here,” Enriquez says, “the question is: How will species be able to adapt to the changes? From left: Indian pipe is a rare parasitic plant that is relatively abundant in the cloud forests of Veracruz; Leaves of a club moss in the cloud forest around El Zapotal; :close-up of fruits of a pokeweed. Research suggests that as much as 84 percent of cloud forest species can live in such coffee plantations. And how will they adapt if climate change moves their clouds? The morning overcast has burned off and the day is hot—without a cloud in the sky. A sharply intelligent woman with unruly black hair, Enriquez studies the population dynamics of cloud forest birds, especially owls. The combination of deforestation and urban heat emanating from the nearby city has pushed up temperatures in the area roughly two degrees Celsius—coincidentally, the same amount that scientists often say would be a catastrophic tipping point with global warming. Please click below to consent to the use of this technology while browsing our site. She and Sosa have several research plots that snake up the sides of the mountain, where they have planted hundreds of native trees that are in decline elsewhere to understand which trees will thrive at which elevations. Places where, if you allowed your mind to drift, you could easily imagine trolls and forest sprites wandering under primordial boughs. The lowlands, now hot and moist, became home to vast rainforests of mahogany, ramón, and sapodilla, as well as orchids, bromeliads, and avocado. Cloud forests are also important for humans. She and her colleagues are trying to ask two simple questions: What constitutes a cloud forest? Many of the trees, like walnuts, that you would expect to see just aren’t here. Guadalupe Williams, who has been a pioneer in cloud forest restoration for decades, planted an experimental forest on the Institute’s grounds 15 years ago, on land whose original forest had been cut down and left fallow decades before. 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And this is where research at the Institute gets interesting. But no clouds. Over the next 10,000 years, a massive change in climate shattered these ecosystems, shifting everything northward and transforming the continent into what we recognize today. They maintain an excellent series of pathways through the forest, complete with benches and shelters for taking a load off. Yet Toledo and her students can see this forest is deeply troubled. Quetzals haven’t been seen here for decades, pushed out by encroaching development. Every weekday we compile our most wondrous stories and deliver them straight to you. But despite the massive challenges, she is immune to doom and gloom. Research student Juan Manuel Diaz Garcia searches a cloud forest stream for amphibians. Floral elements of the pine-oak-liquidambar forest of Montebello, Chiapas, México. INTRODUCTION The El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve encom-passes 119,177 hectares in southern Chiapas, Mexico. But over the years, the land between the Gulf and the mountains has been cleared for farms and housing. But there is one landscape I had long wanted to see more than any other—the cloud forest. See. What they’re finding could help preserve these forests—and offer a glimpse of what conservation may look like in an ever-warming world. Consider supporting our work by becoming a member for as little as $5 a month. Lon&Queta, Flickr. The mountains of Sierra Madre de Chiapas, south of the Chiapas State, Mexico, are home to the most diverse and largest evergreen cloud forest in Mesoamerica and the largest remaining tropical rainforest on the Mexican Pacific coast. Cloud forest in Lagunas de Montebello National Park in Chiapas, Mexico. But cloud forests have been vanishing across Latin America due to a number of human stressors, including encroaching coffee plantations, logging, and of course shifting climates. This time, it’s with Sendas A.C., a cooperative created through local indigenous communities that promotes ecotourism as a way to preserve the forest. El Triunfo Cloud Forest. Offer subject to change without notice. The forests’ best guardians Mexico is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world , home to vast swaths of forest ecosystems ranging from tropical to deciduous to cloud to evergreen. Just as in San Cristóbal, these drier, warmer conditions are a preview of what the world will look like in a future with higher CO2 levels—and this is an excellent place to study that future. It’s not the changing climate alone that will drive species to extinction—it’s the combination of that with centuries of mismanagement by humans. It’s more than a month into rainy season and we should be drenched by cool mist by now—but the cloud layer sits stubbornly thousands of feet above us. Chiapas contains rich biodiversity in its cloud forests, temperate forests, natural and cultivated pasture, humid and sub-humid rain forests. The trouble, they say, is likely not the warming planet. Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. The cloud forest’s abundant forest litter provides habitat for insects and amphibians. A total of 8,370 spiders (1,208 adults and 7,162 juveniles) were collected. Around us I hear dueling mountain trogons staking out breeding grounds, and a slate-throated redstart (Myioborus miniatus) scolding us from the trees. And deciduous forest—those hardwoods that give Midwesterners and East Coasters the stupendous fall colors they enjoy today—was squeezed south, into Alabama, Texas, and down into Mexico. Writer Erik Vance treks into the cloud forest near El Zapotal, Veracruz. Cloud forests are unique ecosystems—throwbacks to the last ice age—that exist within a narrow band of physical and climatic conditions. Not by themselves, but the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is out to show how they can help. It’s simultaneously intimately familiar and bizarrely alien. But studies suggest that climate change in this century alone will have devastating impacts on cloud forests—especially those at the northern extent of their range here in Mexico. These remnant deciduous hardwood forests have persisted for thousands of years in the borderlands between too hot and too cold, too high and too low. Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day. The study was conducted over a 24 days period distributed in 6 months in 2009, covering dry and rainy seasons. Before I leave Xalapa, I take one more trip into the cloud forest, searching for that classic moment where the thick layer of fog lifts off the rich green hillside and the world is muffled in a cloudy blanket. Sosa has tracked similar remnant groups of bats, and a few years ago an amphibian expert at the Institute named Eduardo Pineda made a remarkable discovery. For the most abundant and impressive vegetation, try looking for a tropical lowland cloud forest. Soon we notice the temperature drop a few degrees, and with a thrill I realize we have entered the cloud forest. Depending on elevation, moisture, and temperature, it’s not clear why a walnut might do well in one spot while an oak will thrive in another. “How fast is climate change going to destroy the forest? My plan is to explore the forest around Huitepec, an extinct volcano outside town, so I meet up with Paula Enriquez, a biologist at the nearby College of the Southern Border, and the two of us head up the mountain. One of the many threats faced by Mexico’s cloud forests is deforestation caused by locals clearing land for farm plots and pasture for cattle. To learn more or withdraw consent, please visit our cookie policy. And how can we help them? This year, determined to experience these fantastic foggy forests once and for all, I bought a ticket to the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, in Chiapas, for the beginning of the rainy season in May. While projects like this might make an impact on ecosystems and communities at the ground level, a more existential threat looms large over the planet’s cloud forests: climate change. The Pico El Loro-Paxtal ecological conservation zone was created by decree of November 22, 2000 to protect cloud forest in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas foothills. Here in Mexico, the primary culprits are coffee plantations, which covet the same chilly high altitude soils as cloud forests. To learn what exactly these changing conditions will mean for cloud forests, we follow a group of Toledo’s students into the mountains outside of Xalapa. We stop to listen to a series of short, mournful whistles coming from 60 meters (200 feet) uphill: a mountain trogon (Trogon mexicanus)—cousin of the cloud forest’s most iconic creature, the resplendent quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno)—staking out its breeding territory. “At least in this region, this is what we see eating the forest.”. © 2021 Atlas Obscura. Cloud forests might eventually follow the clouds up the mountainsides. Those ice-age deciduous forests didn’t disappear entirely. The same goes for the cloud forests in the states of Puebla and Veracruz too. (All Photos: Dominic Bracco II / Prime). Williams and Toledo say that cloud forests have adapted to climate change in the past and they will again in the future. The Sierra Madre de Chiapas where El Triunfo is located is one of the regions in the country that receives the most rainfall. It is a beautiful cloud forest on the continental divide high in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, Mexico (and very near the Guatemala border). Many of the cloud forests here simply don’t see the clouds that once helped sustain them. The Extent, Distribution, and Fragmentation of Vanishing Montane Cloud Forest in the Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico1 Luis Cayuela2 Departamento de Ecolog´ıa, Universidad de Alcal a, C.P. BACKGROUND. Elevated and sometimes chilly San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas was famed for once being surrounded by cloud forests (thanks to deforestation there is only a small cloud forest region remaining). Our guide is Angel Morales Gabriel, an enthusiastic lover of all things cloud forest, and his more subdued uncle, Pedro. Even so, visiting the solitary cloud forests of central Chiapas means you can make the lively city of San Cris your base for a few days too and, honestly, any excuse to hang out in Chiapas is a good one, right? We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the world’s hidden wonders. Not all of this dry, hot weather is due to global climate change. From the jungles of Chiapas to the deserts of Sonora, from the freezing 18,500-foot peak of Orizaba to the tortilla-flat Yucatán, from forests filled with butterflies to the underwater abundance surrounding Baja California, Mexico’s ecosystems are easily as diverse and wondrous as those of its northern neighbor. We meet before sunrise, hoping to catch an early morning glimpse of this unique ecosystem in all its foggy glory before the moisture burns off. El Triunfo’s cloud forest is reported to be one of the most extensive remnants in the country and contains the greatest diversity of tree species in North and Central America. “They are still there,” he says. Can an ephemeral ecosystem squeezed between coffee and potatoes find a slice of space inside the cloud layer? They provide clean water for the cities below, as well as crucial habitat for dozens of critically threatened plants and animals. Cloud forests, both in Mexico and beyond, are particularly known for having a high level of endemic animal species taking up residence within them. ... Carlson, M. 1954. The last and perhaps most pertinent reason you should visit a Mexican cloud forest right now is that time is literally running out to do so. In fact, the forest surrounding this extinct volcano is all that’s left of the once-sprawling cloud forests of central Chiapas. In Chiapas alone, 90 percent of the cloud forest has been lost.