Mirador National Park: Interview with Dr. Gerardo Ceballos

La Danta pyramid at El Mirador is the most voluminous pyramid in the world.

Mirador National Park, part of the Mirador-Calakmul Ecosystem of Guatemala and Mexico and a crucial piece of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, contains a stunningly biodiverse rainforest ecosystem. Large populations of elusive jaguar and threatened white-lipped peccary live here, alongside pumas, tapirs, ocelots, agoutis, brocket deer, and rare harpy eagles. Mirador's southern limestone cliffs are the last place in the world with viable populations of the orange-breasted falcon, and the park is on a critical flyway for birds migrating from central and eastern North America. It also has a rich cultural history; the ruins of the ancient Maya city of El Mirador lie here, including the impressive La Danta pyramid, the most voluminous in the world.

Unfortunately, the park is threatened by myriad pressures, including logging, road construction, illegal farming and ranching, drug trafficking, and looting of agricultural sites. In collaboration with our partners, the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES), Guatemalan NGO FundaEco, and the Rainforest Trust, Global Conservation has launched a Global Park Defense program to defend Mirador from destruction.

Mirador rangers patrol the park's rich rainforest.

We caught up with Dr. Gerardo Ceballos, GC Senior Advisor, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Ecology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), author of The Annihilation of Nature, and a highly influential conservationist who conducts research in the Mirador-Calakmul Ecosystem, to find out why it’s so critical for us to save this ecosystem.

What makes the Maya Biosphere Reserve, and in particular the Mirador-Calakmul region, so unique?

There are many reasons; let me emphasize three. Firstly, it is a global hotspot for biodiversity, meaning that it’s an area with a concentration of plants and animals that is globally exceptional. Secondly, right now, it’s the largest tropical forest left in the Americas north of the Orinoco River of Venezuela and Colombia. It’s the last really large area of tropical forest left in Mexico and Central America, and the largest tropical forest left in North America (from Canada to Panama). Finally, because of its particular condition and geological history, it’s an area that has a lot of endemic species, like black howler monkeys and brocket deer, species that are found nowhere else. That is what’s so unique.

Pumas are one of the five cat species present in Mirador National Park.

Unfortunately, it’s also right now very threatened by deforestation. One thing we have to understand is we have lost so many species and so many populations of wild plants and animals that we have entered what we call the sixth mass extinction. This is a massive event that has only happened five times previously in the last 600 million years. Each of those five times, a catastrophic natural phenomenon, like the impact of a meteorite, caused the destruction of 70% or more of all species of plants and animals.

This time, this is the most rapid mass extinction ever, and it isn’t being caused by a natural catastrophe, but by humans. By losing all these plants and animals, we are losing the capability of Earth to maintain the conditions that sustain life. And in this particular context the Maya Forest is extremely important because fewer than 50 places like the Maya Forest remain on Earth, in terms of its intactness and incredible species diversity. The Maya Forest is up there with the Amazon and the Congo Basin in terms of its value to the planet.

"This is the most rapid mass extinction ever, and it isn’t being caused by a natural catastrophe, but by humans."

How has Global Conservation’s support assisted with Mirador-Calakmul’s conservation?

Perhaps the most important way has been in showing these places to the general public, in the sense that many more people are aware of the unique Maya Forest and the threats to its existence. But the second thing would be all the work that GC is doing on-site to protect the area. This large chunk of forest is under a lot of threat because of encroachment of illegal activities, narcotrafficking, illegal logging, settlement, illegal hunting, and so on. GC is doing critical work by developing a system that can help to understand where the threats are and how to respond to them – Global Park Defense.

Jaguars are Mirador's top predator. This forest contains some of the highest known jaguar densities on Earth.

"GC is doing critical work by developing a system that can help to understand where the threats are and how to respond to them – Global Park Defense."

And finally, GC has supported baseline studies of jaguar populations in the area. The only way to evaluate if conservation actions are working properly is by having metrics. The metrics in this case are how much land you still have, how much land you’re losing each year, and what are the populations of jaguars and other critical species through time.

The other thing that’s important about GC’s work is that they’re helping to empower local people like Francisco Asturias, who, if they were alone, would already have been killed by the bad guys. But by being profiled in a place like GC with much more exposure to the international arena and public and so on, it really helps to ease the threat to the local people.

Francisco Asturias is the Director of FundaEco in Petén and the Director of the Mirador Park Rangers.

What are the most concerning threats to the Mirador-Calakmul ecosystem?

There are all kinds of problems. Basically, the two major problems in Calakmul are habitat encroachment – destruction of the forest for agriculture or cattle or timber – and the hunting of animals and removal of selected plants. An ecosystem is made of many pieces – think of it like a structure made of Legos. Each of those Legos represents a species. There are two ways to destroy the Lego structure: one way is to drop it, to smash it apart, and the other one is by removing Legos one at a time. If you remove one Lego, the building doesn’t fall, but it starts to work less properly. Eventually, as you remove more Legos, it will collapse.

Both of those two things are happening in forests throughout the world. On the one hand, we’re destroying whole forests, and in other places we’re slowly taking away parts of the forest through illegal hunting, illegal forestry, and habitat encroachment. The drug trafficking in the Mirador-Calakmul area is also really bad; traffickers destroy huge areas of forest to create cattle ranches where they launder drug money. La Laguna Del Tigre is a massive area where more than 200,000 hectares have been destroyed in the last 15 years. The cattle ranches allow narcotraffickers to land their airplanes and take the drugs out. And it’s easier to protect a ranch if it’s not surrounded by forest.

Mirador rangers arrest poachers in Mirador National Park.

Fires are also a problem. Fires are set to destroy the forest so that they can claim it for agriculture and pasture. Though the fires themselves are not a threat, they’re a method to destroy the forest. In this ecosystem, natural fires are really rare for two reasons: firstly, because it’s raining all the time, and secondly because even in the dry season, the plants and the soil are very wet. Many of the trees have large concentrations of water in their roots to survive during the dry season. What has been unique in the last 10 years is we are starting to see fires in tropical forests. If I had said ten years ago, or fifty years ago, that the Amazon was going to be burned, everyone would have laughed at me. But now, because of climate change, those tropical forests are becoming more prone to fires. At the scale that it’s happening, fires like this have never happened before.

In Mirador-Calakmul, we haven’t yet seen widespread fires like in the Amazon, but this is a big threat. In the next few years, Mirador-Calakmul’s forests may also become more prone to human fires that spread throughout the whole forest. Right now, those fires are more localized: people cut down a section of forest and let it dry, and then they can set a fire because the plant material is dry. That’s the way that they clear the forest. It’s climate change plus human disturbance that’s allowing fires to destroy the forest.

"Because of climate change, tropical forests are becoming more prone to fires. At the scale that it’s happening, fires like this have never happened before."

Fires are increasingly used to clear forest in the Mirador region.

Why should the average person who lives quite far away from Guatemala care about Mirador-Calakmul?

Why should we care about extinction and habitat destruction? I could give many, many practical reasons, and there are also ethical, cultural, philosophical, and religious reasons. But the most important one is that we are what we are because our evolution has been shaped by the natural world that we live in. We wouldn’t be here if the plants and animals were not there.

But forget about that. Why should you or I care? First of all, the vaccine against COVID was the tropical forest. What I mean is, our destruction of forests brought the pandemic upon us, and it could have been prevented.

Tell us more -- how can the destruction of the nature result in human pandemics like COVID-19?

COVID probably originated from the illegal trade of wildlife in wet markets in Southeast Asia, especially in China. They call them “wet markets” because they spray the floor with water to wash away the blood of the animals. The floor is always wet. You’ll see civet cats, racoons, dogs, rabbits, pigs, all kinds of animals in tiny cages on top of each other. They poo and pee on each other. These are very filthy conditions, ideal for the spread of infectious diseases, especially when the animals are malnourished and sick.

Remember that diseases occur naturally in all animals, even humans. They’re an integral part of natural ecosystems, a mechanism to keep populations stable, to stop them from growing with no limit. It’s one way to maintain the balance of nature.

Poachers posing with illegally hunted jaguars.

The spread of new infectious diseases to humans occurs in two major ways. One, when we encroach on forests that have been isolated for eons, with little human impact, we and our domestic animals come into contact with wild animals and their diseases. Under those conditions, infectious diseases that until then have never been in contact with humans and domestic animals can sometimes infect them. That is the case for many new diseases such as Ebola and AIDS.

The second way to get a new zoonotic (i.e. emerging from animals) disease to emerge is through illegal trade. Hundreds of millions of species are illegally traded for food and traditional medicine, especially to markets in southeast Asia, particularly China and Vietnam. As I said before, the conditions where the wild and domestic animals are maintained in the market to be sold are filthy and perfect for viruses and bacteria to jump among species. In some cases, unfortunately, those new diseases then encounter the perfect conditions to spread from human to human, throughout the world, and become a pandemic. Such is the case with COVID-19.

Poachers enter Mirador National Park on motorbikes, captured on a trail camera.

How could COVID-19 have been prevented?

Many scientists, including me, wrote that this was a possibility. I gave an interview in 2013 saying that the conditions were perfect for a pandemic. We never thought it would be so fast, and we never thought the magnitude would be so great, but we knew that this would happen. COVID-19 is just one symptom of the destruction of nature by humans; if that destruction continues, we’re vulnerable to many more problems.

We scientists call all the benefits that we get for free from nature “ecosystem services”. For example, the combination of gases in the atmosphere that is suitable for life on Earth is created by healthy ecosystems. The drinking water available to humans is created by healthy ecosystems. Primary productivity – plants converting the energy of the sun into energy available to humans, through crops – requires a healthy ecosystem.

"COVID-19 is just one symptom of the destruction of nature by humans; if that destruction continues, we’re vulnerable to many more problems."

Healthy ecosystems are also critical for human health.

Ecosystem services are part of the machinery of nature that allows Earth to maintain the conditions for life. In other words, there is life on Earth because of ecosystems and the wild plants and animals within them. If we destroy them, we destroy the capabilities of Earth to maintain life in general and to maintain human life in particular. So why should we care? We should care because by destroying tropical forests, temperate forests, coral reefs, we’re destroying the Earth's capability to maintain life and to maintain civilization.

Based on my research and the research of many others, we believe that we have no more than 20 years before we reach a tipping point where there is no way that we will be able to maintain the conditions of life and there will be a collapse of civilization. When I was studying this at the beginning, we thought that the collapse of civilization could be in the year 2100. Now we think if we’re lucky it will be in 2050. That’s why we should care about those forests, and those plants and animals.

"Why should we care? We should care because by destroying tropical forests, temperate forests, and coral reefs, we’re destroying the Earth's capability to maintain life and to maintain civilization."

An ocelot, one of Mirador's five cat species, caught on trail camera.

Many people on Earth are preoccupied with how they will get food to eat the next day. But for affluent people, there is no excuse not to care. All the information is freely available. There is so much information. But we as conservationists have failed to make the public widely aware of the importance of this problem. Extinction is bad because of this lack of awareness, but unless we stop it soon, civilization is going to collapse.

Fortunately, we still have time and we should keep pushing. The work that GC is doing in Mirador and in other places is very important because GC is focusing on parks in developing countries which otherwise would have little chance to survive in the coming decades. And I think that what we manage to keep conserved in the next 10-20 years will have a good chance of surviving in the long run.

"What we manage to keep conserved in the next 10-20 years will have a good chance of surviving in the long run."

A question about your research: What is it that interests you about jaguars and why are they so important to ecosystems?

I became interested in jaguars because they are beautiful, they are powerful, they are massive, they are charismatic, and they are culturally important. They are the top predators in the American tropics; there is no animal that is higher up in the hierarchy of animals. Because they are the top predators, they need a lot of land to maintain their populations. So, by convincing people to protect jaguars – and it’s easy for people to connect with a charismatic, powerful, beautiful animal like a jaguar – we can protect the whole ecosystem and thousands and thousands of species in it. In science and conservation, we call them “umbrella species”, because if you protect the jaguar you protect all the species – plants and animals – that live in their habitat.

GC Senior advisor Dr. Gerardo Ceballos with a jaguar that is under anesthesia in order to fit it with a GPS collar, which will track its movements.

Working with jaguars is also incredibly nice because you are in the field, in magical places such as those we’re protecting across Mirador-Calakmul. We are working for instance in some areas protected by the local people, and when we started our study there were very few animals. Ten years later, they now have many jaguars and tapirs. Wildlife is incredibly resilient because if you manage to protect them, and take some of the pressure off of them, they rebound. They have faced so many problems in the last million years of their evolution that they can rebound.

In Mexico, we have pushed hard to protect jaguars and run a big publicity campaign. In the last ten years, we have made the jaguar the most well-known and the most cared about animal in the country. It’s only been ten years and now you find jaguars in many places. For example, there are jaguars now just 40 miles away from Mexico City, something unheard of before. They adapt. They can eat small prey, they can live close to humans, as long as you don’t kill them and do not destroy all of their habitat. And fortunately, jaguars don’t attack humans, so we don’t have the kinds of problems there are with conserving tigers, for example. I’ve been sleeping in the forest and hear jaguars ten feet from where I was sleeping, looking at me, thinking, “what is this guy doing here?”

What needs to happen to make sure jaguars are conserved long into the future?

Three things need to happen. One thing is that we need to protect their habitat: we must have large chunks of land like Mirador-Calakmul that have viable populations of jaguars. Second, those lands have to be connected by corridors to other protected areas. And third, we need to reduce poaching and the illegal trade in jaguar parts.

If we maintain Mirador-Calakmul and other places like it, I think jaguars will be safe from extinction.

Gerardo Ceballos speaks at the Stop Extinction seminar at Stanford University in 2020.

What can people do to help conserve jaguars?

We affluent people can do many things. First, we just need to care about nature. To show it some love, just because it is beautiful. We need to reduce our consumption. We need to support more sustainable companies and products, such as electric cars and so on. We need to reduce our waste, our ecological impact. Use less plastic, less disposable products, for example. Never use wildlife for food, pets, or other uses. We need to understand that we can tackle this gigantic challenge. We need to support politicians that have the right attitude to nature. And we need to help conservation groups such as GC by donating as much as we can, to help them to protect more habitats and species.