Latin Analysis: Inside the New Tri-National Plan to Protect the Mayan Jungle
Pau de Valencia
Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize recently agreed to establish a vast protected area across the Maya rainforest, marking a rare moment of unified environmental action in a region where competing development priorities, organized crime, and political tension have often obstructed cooperation.
Announced in August 2025, the plan creates the Great Mayan Jungle Biocultural Corridor, a 14-million-acre reserve spanning southern Mexico and the northern territories of Guatemala and Belize. It would become the second largest protected forest in the Americas after the Amazon.
The agreement brings together governments that have historically taken different approaches to conservation and development, and it comes at a time when pressures on the region’s forests have intensified. The scale of the initiative, the political coordination behind it, and the challenges that lie ahead set the stage for assessing whether this ambitious undertaking can transform one of the region’s most fragile and valuable ecosystems.
The ambitions of the agreement
The Great Mayan Jungle Biocultural Corridor grew out of a summit involving the leaders of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, who framed the project as a shared responsibility to protect one of the last remaining tropical forests in Mesoamerica. The protected zone spans more than 5.7 million hectares, connecting existing national reserves into a continuous region where wildlife movement can be preserved, and ecological recovery encouraged. Guatemala is to contribute the largest share – around one fifth of its total size – at 2.7 million hectares. Mexico and Belize will add significant additional territory, with Mexico contributing 2.4 million hectares and Belize nearly 600,000 hectares of protected natural areas.
The ecological justification for the corridor is straightforward. The Mayan forest contains more than 7,000 species, including 200 endangered species and hundreds of endemic species – meaning they are unique to the Mayan forest. The region functions as a refuge for jaguars, birds, and other species that depend on uninterrupted forest habitat. The corridor is designed to link these habitats more effectively, strengthening biological connectivity across borders and reducing the risk that national boundaries become barriers that disrupt animal populations. The long-term aim is to restore degraded areas, regenerate soils, and preserve the water systems sustaining both human and ecological life.
The corridor seeks to address not only environmental degradation but also broader governance failures that have enabled such destructive activities. It draws on decades of national conservation efforts, such as Mexico’s designation of Calakmul as a biosphere reserve in 1989, Guatemala’s establishment of protected areas in the Petén region, and Belize’s various conservation programs. The corridor brings these isolated initiatives together and adds a regional cooperative approach to environmental monitoring and protection. For residents, it holds the potential for development models that could prioritize sustainable land use practices, including programs that could diversify livelihoods through ecotourism, forest restoration, and research.
Security pressures and political dynamics
Despite its ambitions, the corridor faces real challenges. The most immediate challenge is security. Criminal organizations have operated in the Mayan forest for years, and environmental groups have long warned that stretches of the Mexico-Guatemala border are lined with routes for illegal logging and clandestine runways used for transporting cocaine by plane. Ranchers and miners have used the absence of state oversight to clear forest land. These activities have expanded as government institutions struggled to maintain authority in remote municipalities. Guatemalan environment minister Patricia Orantes noted that the area in question has been effectively abandoned, allowing organized crime to entrench itself. Mexico’s environment secretary Alicia Barcena echoed this view, arguing that no conservation plan would succeed unless security forces gain a meaningful presence in areas where state institutions have been weak.
Replacing these economies with legal alternatives would be a difficult task. Merely deploying troops is unlikely to achieve lasting change, as demonstrated by Mexico’s experience in Chiapas, where criminal networks adapted to security crackdowns by embedding themselves more deeply into local economic structures. Many affected communities in northern Guatemala have few opportunities outside illicit activity, making it essential to offer residents credible economic alternatives rather than rely on enforcement alone.
In an effort to shift incentives in this way, the Mexican government has proposed expanding its Planting Life program, an initiative launched in 2018 that provides funds to landowners to plant trees and crops to encourage reforestation. Government officials maintain that the program, with a $2 billion national budget, is being adjusted to better align with environmental goals. The community engagement promised through such programs is essential, as successful conservation relies on alignment between government efforts and local social dynamics, and communities invested in biocultural land management are sometimes more resilient to criminal influences.
Another challenge is ensuring that governments adhere to their promise to avoid damaging megaprojects within the corridor. This issue has become particularly sensitive due to Mexico’s Maya Train, a tourist rail project initiated by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The train was pushed forward without detailed environmental studies being consulted, ultimately cutting through delicate cave systems serving as major water sources and deforested 7 million trees. Environmental groups have criticized the project and greet the new corridor with tentative optimism. Although President Sheinbaum has said the train could bring development to marginalized regions, the controversy surrounding its construction continues to invite scepticism, no less because of its potential to offset the environmental benefits of the trinational corridor.
The possibility of extending the Maya Train into Guatemala and Belize has therefore become a central political question. Belize has expressed interest in the project’s potential economic benefits, while Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo has stated that while he supports regional connectivity, he would not allow the rail line to pass through any protected area. He and Sheinbaum have discussed an alternative route that avoids sensitive forest territory. For the corridor to succeed, the governments will need to uphold their commitments and resist development projects that undermine conservation goals. To help ensure this, the three countries agreed to form a council of environmental authorities and an Indigenous advisory council that must review any proposed project within the corridor.
Political dynamics between Guatemala and Belize also provide an important backdrop. The two countries have a long-standing border dispute that has been sent to the International Court of Justice, with hearings scheduled for 2026. The dispute has not prevented cooperation on the corridor, but its presence may complicate long-term political coordination and adds uncertainty to the process of establishing joint management protocols. Even so, the trilateral agreement may indicate that all three governments see environmental protection as an area where cooperation can be insulated from other disputes.
Indigenous communities and the future of the corridor
Any long-term conservation plan in the Maya forest must account for the Indigenous communities who have lived in and managed these landscapes for centuries. The tri-national agreement acknowledges this by recognizing Indigenous groups as “guardians of nature” and by committing to incorporate traditional knowledge into conservation planning.
The well-being of these communities is presented as a central objective of the corridor. The Indigenous advisory council is intended to help review projects within the corridor and ensure that community perspectives are represented, particularly in decisions about land use and access. The project calls for the regeneration of soils, restoration of forest cover, promotion of food self-sufficiency, and the recognition of Indigenous labor in environmental protection. Many communities already depend on sustainable activities such as honey production, ecotourism, and regulated timber harvesting. By strengthening these livelihoods, the corridor aims to reduce pressure to participate in illegal economies.
This approach draws on existing models. In several parts of southern Mexico, communities engaged in biocultural management have achieved durable coexistence with surrounding criminal activity because they maintain strong internal governance and derive economic benefits from conservation. Extending this model across borders, however, will require sustained support, transparent monitoring, and sufficient funding. The corridor has already attracted interest from international conservation organizations that have funded land acquisition and protection efforts in recent years. Whether these resources translate into meaningful improvements for local residents will depend on the strength of coordination among the three governments.
The Great Mayan Jungle Biocultural Corridor represents a significant effort to confront environmental degradation within one of the most important forests in the Americas. The scope of the challenges is considerable, from entrenched criminal economies to political uncertainty surrounding large development projects. Yet the decision by Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize to undertake a joint strategy signals a recognition that protecting the Maya forest is both an ecological necessity and a political opportunity. The test ahead is whether the three governments can sustain this cooperation long enough for the corridor to move from aspiration to effective, lasting protection.