Cusuco National Park
Encyclopedia
Cusuco National Park is a national park
in Honduras
. It was established on 1 January 1959 and covers an area of 234.4 square kilometres (90.5 sq mi).
Cusuco National Park is a 23400 hectares (57,822.6 acre) protected area in the Merendon mountains of northwest Honduras. The park ranges from just above sea level in the west to 2425 metres (7,956 ft) in the middle. The park comprises a 7690 hectares (19,002.4 acre) core zone surrounded by a 15750 hectares (38,919.1 acre) buffer zone. Cusuco encompasses several major habitats, including semi-arid pine forest, moist pine forest, moist broadleaf forest and dwarf forest (bosque enaño) at elevations above 2000 metres (6,561.7 ft).
The park is part of the Meso-American biodiversity hotspot (Conservation International 2006), a region characterised by exceptional species richness. Cusuco also has great diversity of habitats and high beta diversity in many groups due to the large elevational gradients in the park. Cusuco supports exceptional biodiversity. Some of the key features of the park include the globally threatened taxa which the park protects - especially amphibians (table 1), Baird’s tapir, the assemblage of montane forest specialist birds, jewel scarab beetles, and the globally rare bosque enaño (dwarf forest) habitat, which is characterised by Orthea brachysiphon. Cusuco is recognised as a Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) due to the overlapping ranges of several globally threatened amphibian species. The integrity of the ecosystem is threatened by land cover change and unsustainable land management practices – particularly conversion of forest to coffee plantations - by human population growth and infrastructure intensification, overexploitation of large mammals, the amphibian disease chytridiomycosis
, and climate change.
There is a visitors' center at 15.496111°N 88.211667°W.
National park
A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...
in Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
. It was established on 1 January 1959 and covers an area of 234.4 square kilometres (90.5 sq mi).
Cusuco National Park is a 23400 hectares (57,822.6 acre) protected area in the Merendon mountains of northwest Honduras. The park ranges from just above sea level in the west to 2425 metres (7,956 ft) in the middle. The park comprises a 7690 hectares (19,002.4 acre) core zone surrounded by a 15750 hectares (38,919.1 acre) buffer zone. Cusuco encompasses several major habitats, including semi-arid pine forest, moist pine forest, moist broadleaf forest and dwarf forest (bosque enaño) at elevations above 2000 metres (6,561.7 ft).
The park is part of the Meso-American biodiversity hotspot (Conservation International 2006), a region characterised by exceptional species richness. Cusuco also has great diversity of habitats and high beta diversity in many groups due to the large elevational gradients in the park. Cusuco supports exceptional biodiversity. Some of the key features of the park include the globally threatened taxa which the park protects - especially amphibians (table 1), Baird’s tapir, the assemblage of montane forest specialist birds, jewel scarab beetles, and the globally rare bosque enaño (dwarf forest) habitat, which is characterised by Orthea brachysiphon. Cusuco is recognised as a Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) due to the overlapping ranges of several globally threatened amphibian species. The integrity of the ecosystem is threatened by land cover change and unsustainable land management practices – particularly conversion of forest to coffee plantations - by human population growth and infrastructure intensification, overexploitation of large mammals, the amphibian disease chytridiomycosis
Chytridiomycosis
Chytridiomycosis is an infectious disease of amphibians, caused by the chytrid Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a non-hyphal zoosporic fungus. Chytridiomycosis has been linked to dramatic population declines or even extinctions of amphibian species in western North America, Central America, South...
, and climate change.
There is a visitors' center at 15.496111°N 88.211667°W.