One of the thrills of travel in Mexico is the incredible, ever-changing scenery. From the cactus-strewn northern deserts and the snowcapped volcanoes of central Mexico to the tropical forests and wildlife-rich lagoons of the south, there’s rarely a dull moment for the eye. Nature lovers will revel in this country which, thanks to its location straddling temperate and tropical regions, is one of the most biologically diverse on earth.
Nearly two million sq km in area, Mexico is the world’s 14th-biggest country. With 10,000km of coastline and half its land above 1000m in elevation, the country has a spectacularly diverse and rugged topography. Almost anywhere you go, except the Yucatán Peninsula, there’ll be a range of mountains in sight, close or distant.
The Cordillera Neovolcánica, the spectacular volcanic belt running east–west across the middle of Mexico, includes the classic active cones of Popocatépetl (5452m), 70km southeast of Mexico City, and Volcán de Fuego de Colima (3820m), 30km north of Colima. Popocatépetl’s eruptions (at low to intermediate intensity) have been ongoing from 2006; over 30 million people live within the area that could be directly affected should smoking ‘Popo’ erupt in a big way. Both Popocatépetl and Colima have spewed forth clouds of ash in 2017. Also in the volcanic belt, but dormant, are Mexico’s highest peak, Pico de Orizaba (5611m), and the third-highest peak, Popo’s ‘sister’ Iztaccíhuatl (5220m). Mexico’s youngest volcano, and the easiest to get to the top of, is Paricutín (2800m), which popped up in 1943 near the Michoacán village of Angahuan.
The upland valleys between the volcanoes have always been among the most habitable areas of Mexico. It’s in one of these – the Valle de México (a 60km-wide basin at 2200m elevation) – that Mexico City, with its 20 million people, sits ringed by volcanic ranges.
A string of broad plateaus, the Altiplano Central, runs down the middle of the northern half of Mexico, fringed by two long mountain chains – the Sierra Madre Occidental in the west and Sierra Madre Oriental in the east. The altiplano and the two sierras madre end where they run into the Cordillera Neovolcánica.
The altiplano is criss-crossed by minor mountain ranges, and rises from an average elevation of about 1000m in the north to more than 2000m toward the center of the country. The sparsely vegetated Desierto Chihuahuense (Chihuahuan Desert) covers most of the northern altiplano and extends north into the US states of Texas and New Mexico. The landscape here is one of long-distance vistas across dusty brown plains to distant mountains, with eagles and vultures circling the skies. The southern altiplano is mostly rolling hills and broad valleys, and includes some of the best Mexican farming and ranching land in the area known as El Bajío, between the cities of Querétaro, Guanajuato and Morelia. The extremely rugged Sierra Madre Occidental is fissured by many spectacularly deep canyons, including the famous Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon) and its 1870m-deep continuation, the Barranca de Urique. The Sierra Madre Oriental includes peaks as high as 3700m, but has semitropical zones on its lower, eastern slopes.
Baja California, one of the world’s longest peninsulas, runs down Mexico’s northwest coast. It is believed to have been separated from the ‘mainland’ about five million years ago by tectonic forces, with the Sea of Cortez (Golfo de California) filling the gap. Baja is 1300km of starkly beautiful deserts, plains and beaches, with a mountainous spine that reaches up to 3100m in the Sierra San Pedro Mártir.
Coastal plains stretch all along Mexico’s Pacific coast and as far south as the Tabasco lowlands on the Gulf coast. Both coasts are strung with hundreds of lagoons, estuaries and wetlands, making them important wildlife habitats.
On the Pacific side, a dry, wide plain stretches south from the US border almost to Tepic, in Nayarit state. As they continue south to the Guatemalan border, the lowlands narrow to a thin strip and become increasingly tropical.
The Gulf coast plain, an extension of a similar plain in Texas, is crossed by many rivers flowing down from the Sierra Madre Oriental. In the northeast, the plain is wide, with good ranchland, but is semimarsh near the coast. It narrows as it nears Veracruz.
Yet another rugged, complicated mountain chain, the Sierra Madre del Sur stretches across the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, roughly paralleling the Cordillera Neovolcánica, from which it’s divided by the broiling hot Río Balsas basin. The Sierra Madre del Sur ends at the low-lying, hot and humid Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico’s narrow ‘waist’, which is just 220km wide.
In the southernmost state of Chiapas, the Pacific lowlands are backed by the Sierra Madre de Chiapas. Dormant Volcán Tacaná, whose 4110m cone rises on the Mexico–Guatemala border, is the westernmost of a string of volcanoes that stretch across Guatemala. Behind the Chiapas highlands, the land sinks to the lowlands of the Lacandón Jungle and the flat expanses of the huge limestone shelf that is the Yucatán Peninsula. The Yucatán’s soft, easily eroded limestone has led to the formation of many underground rivers and more than 6000 sinkholes, known as cenotes, many of which make fantastic swimming holes. Off the Yucatán’s Caribbean coast is the world’s second-largest barrier reef, known variously as the Great Maya, Mesoamerican or Belize Barrier Reef. It’s home to a fantastic variety of colorful marine life that makes it one of the world’s top diving and snorkeling destinations.
From the whales, sea lions and giant cacti of Baja California to the big cats, howler monkeys and cloud forests of the southeast, Mexico’s fauna and flora are exotic and fascinating. Getting out among it all is becoming steadily easier as growing numbers of local outfits offer trips to see birds, butterflies, whales, dolphins, sea turtles and more.
The surviving tropical forests of the southeast are still home to five species of large cat (jaguar, puma, ocelot, jaguarundi and margay) in isolated pockets, plus spider and howler monkeys, tapirs, anteaters and some mean reptiles, including a few boa constrictors. Small jaguar populations are scattered as far north as the northern Sierra Madre Occidental, just 200km from the US border, and the Sierra Gorda in the Sierra Madre Oriental. You may well see howler monkeys – or at least hear their eerie growls – near the Maya ruins at Palenque and Yaxchilán.
In the north, urban growth, ranching and agriculture have pushed the larger wild beasts – such as the puma (mountain lion), wolf, bobcat, bighorn sheep, pronghorn and coyote – into isolated, often mountainous pockets. Raccoons, armadillos and skunks are still fairly common – the last two in much of the rest of Mexico too.
In all warm parts of Mexico you’ll encounter two harmless, though sometimes surprising, reptiles: the iguana, a lizard that can grow a meter or so long and comes in many different colors; and the gecko, a tiny, usually green lizard that may shoot out from behind a curtain or cupboard when disturbed. Geckos might make you jump, but they’re good news – they eat mosquitoes.
Baja California is famous for whale-watching in the early months of the year. Gray whales swim 10,000km from the Arctic to calve in its coastal waters. Between Baja and the mainland, the Sea of Cortez hosts more than a third of all the world’s marine mammal species, including sea lions, fur and elephant seals, and four types of whale. Humpback whales follow plankton-bearing currents all the way down Mexico’s Pacific coast between December and March, and, like dolphins and sea turtles, are commonly seen on boat trips from coastal towns.
Mexico’s coasts, from Baja to Chiapas and from the northeast to the Yucatán Peninsula, are among the world’s chief nesting grounds for sea turtles. Seven of the world’s eight species frequent Mexican waters. Some female turtles swim unbelievable distances (right across the Pacific Ocean in the case of some loggerhead turtles) to lay eggs on the beaches where they were born. Killing sea turtles or taking their eggs is illegal in Mexico, and there are more than 100 protected nesting beaches – at many of which it’s possible to observe the phenomenon known as an arribada, when turtles come ashore in large numbers to nest, and to assist in the release of hatchlings.
Dolphins play along the Pacific and Gulf coasts, while many coastal wetlands, especially in the south of the country, harbor crocodiles. Underwater life is richest of all on the coral reefs off the Yucatán Peninsula’s Caribbean coast, where there’s world-class diving and snorkeling. Near Isla Contoy, off the Yucatán’s northeast tip, you can snorkel with whale sharks, the world’s biggest fish.
All of coastal Mexico is a fantastic bird habitat, especially its estuaries, lagoons and islands. An estimated three billion migrating birds pass by or over the Yucatán Peninsula each year, and Veracruz state is a route of passage for a ‘river of raptors’ over 4 million strong every fall. Inland Mexico abounds with eagles, hawks and buzzards, and innumerable ducks and geese winter in the northern Sierra Madre Occidental. Tropical species such as trogons, hummingbirds, parrots and tanagers start to appear south of Tampico in the east of the country and from around Mazatlán in the west. The southeastern jungles and cloud forests are home to colorful macaws, toucans, guans and even a few quetzals. Yucatán has spectacular flamingo colonies at Celestún and Río Lagartos. Dozens of local operators around the country, especially along the coasts, offer bird-watching trips.
Mexico’s most unforgettable insect marvel is Michoacán’s Reserva Mariposa Monarca, where the trees and earth turn orange when millions of monarch butterflies arrive every winter.
By most counts, 101 animal species are in danger of disappearing from Mexico. Eighty-one of these are endemic to Mexico. The endangered list includes such wonderful creatures as the jaguar, ocelot, northern tamandua (an anteater), pronghorn, Central American (Baird’s) tapir, harpy eagle, resplendent quetzal, scarlet macaw, Cozumel curassow, loggerhead turtle, sea otter, Guadalupe fur seal, four types of parrot, and both spider and howler monkeys. The beautiful little vaquita (harbor porpoise), found only in the northern Sea of Cortez, was down to less than 30 individuals by 2017, prompting a controversial last-ditch campaign by the government and consevartionsts to save them by banning all nets from the coast and compensating fishermen for loss of work. The Margarita Island kangaroo rat and Hubbs freshwater snail may be less glamorous, but their disappearance too will forever affect the other plants and animals around them. Additionally, they’re endemic to Mexico, so once gone from here, they’re gone from the universe. A host of factors contribute to these creatures’ endangered status, including deforestation, the spread of agriculture and urban areas, species trafficking and poaching.
Mexico’s main tools for saving endangered species are its network of protected areas such as national parks and biosphere reserves, which covers 13% of the national territory, and a range of specific schemes aimed at conserving certain habitats or species. Government programs are supplemented by the work of local and international conservation groups, but progress is slowed by large gaps in the protected areas network, patchy enforcement and limited funding.
Northern Mexico’s deserts, though sparsely vegetated with cacti, agaves, yucca, scrub and short grasses, are the world’s most biodiverse deserts. Most of the planet’s 2000 or so cactus species are found in Mexico, including more than 400 in the Desierto Chihuahuense alone, and many of them unique to Mexico. Isolated Baja California has a rather specialized and diverse flora, from the 20m-high cardón (the world’s tallest cactus) to the bizarre boojum tree, which looks like an inverted carrot with fluff at the top.
Mexico’s great mountain chains have big expanses of pine (with half the world’s pine species) and, at lower elevations, oak (135 types). In the southern half of the country, mountain pine forests are often covered in clouds, turning them into cloud forests with lush, damp vegetation, many colorful wildflowers, and epiphytes growing on tree branches.
The natural vegetation of the low-lying southeast is predominantly evergreen tropical forest (rainforest in parts). This is dense and diverse, with ferns, epiphytes, palms, tropical hardwoods such as mahogany, and fruit trees such as the mamey and the chicozapote (sapodilla), which yields chicle (natural chewing gum). Despite ongoing destruction, the Selva Lacandona (Lacandón Jungle) in Chiapas is Mexico’s largest remaining tropical forest, containing a significant number of Chiapas’ 10,000 plant species.
The Yucatán Peninsula changes from rainforest in the south to tropical dry forest and savanna in the north, with thorny bushes and small trees (including many acacias).
Mexico has spectacular national parks, biosphere reserves and other protected areas – over 910,000 sq km of its terrestrial and marine territory is under some kind of federal environmental protection. Governments have never had enough money for fully effective protection of these areas, but gradually, with some help from conservation organizations, more ‘paper parks’ are becoming real ones.
TOP PARKS & RESERVES
| PARK/RESERVE | FEATURES | ACTIVITIES | WHEN TO VISIT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Área de Protección de Flora y Fauna Cuatrociénegas | Desert; underground streams; pozas (swimming holes); extraordinary biodiversity | Swimming; wildlife-watching; hiking | year-round |
| Parque Nacional Archipiélago Espíritu Santo | Waters around Espíritu Santo & neighboring islands in Sea of Cortez | Kayaking with whale sharks; snorkeling with sea lions; sailing | year-round |
| Parque Nacional Bahía de Loreto | Islands, shores & waters of the Sea of Cortez | Snorkeling; kayaking; diving | year-round |
| Parque Nacional Iztaccíhuatl-Popocatépetl | Active & dormant volcanic giants on rim of Valle de México | Hiking; climbing | Nov-Feb |
| Parque Nacional Lagunas de Chacahua | Oaxacan coastal lagoons; beach | Boat trips; bird-watching; surfing | year-round |
| Parque Nacional Volcán Nevado de Colima | Active & dormant volcanoes; pumas; coyotes; pine forests | Volcano hiking | late Oct-early Jun |
| Reserva de la Biosfera Banco Chinchorro | Largest coral atoll in northern hemisphere | Diving; snorkeling | Dec-May |
| Reserva de la Biosfera Calakmul | Rainforest with major Maya ruins including Calakmul, Hormiguero and Chicanná | Visiting ruins; wildlife-spotting | year-round |
| Reserva de la Biosfera El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar | Petrified lava flows, sand dunes, giant craters; one of the driest places on earth | Hiking; wildlife-spotting | year-round |
| Reserva de la Biosfera El Vizcaíno | Coastal lagoons where gray whales calve; deserts | Whale-watching; hikes to ancient rock art | Dec-Apr |
| Reserva de la Biosfera Mariposa Monarca | Forests festooned with millions of monarch butterflies | Butterfly observation; hiking | late Oct-Mar |
| Reserva de la Biosfera Montes Azules | Tropical jungle; lakes; rivers | Jungle hikes; canoeing; rafting; bird-watching; wildlife-watching | Dec-Aug |
| Reserva de la Biosfera Ría Celestún | Estuary & mangroves with plentiful bird life, incl flamingos | Bird-watching; boat trips | Nov-Mar |
| Reserva de la Biosfera Ría Lagartos | Mangrove-lined estuary full of bird-life, incl flamingos | Bird-, crocodile- and turtle-watching | Apr-Sep |
| Reserva de la Biosfera Sian Ka’an | Caribbean coastal jungle, wetlands & islands with incredibly diverse wildlife | Bird-watching; snorkeling & nature tours, mostly by boat | year-round |
| Reserva de la Biosfera Sierra Gorda | Transition zone from semidesert to cloud forest | Hiking; bird-watching; colonial missions | year-round |
Mexico’s 67 terrestrial parques nacionales (national parks) cover 14,320 sq km of territory. Many are tiny (smaller than 10 sq km), and around half of them were created in the 1930s, often for their archaeological, historical or recreational value rather than for ecological reasons. Several recently created parks protect coastal areas, offshore islands or coral reefs. In November 2017, Mexico announced the creation of the biggest marine reserve in North America, Parque Nacional Revillagigedo (150,000 sq km), that will protect the eponymous islands, the ‘Galapagos of North America’, and the marine species that inhabit the surrounding waters. Despite illegal logging, hunting and grazing, terrestrial national parks have succeeded in protecting big tracts of forest, especially the high, coniferous forests of central Mexico.
Reservas de la biosfera (biosphere reserves) are based on the recognition that it is impracticable to put a complete stop to human exploitation of many ecologically important areas. Instead, these reserves encourage sustainable local economic activities within their territory. Today Mexico has over 50 Unesco-protected and/or national biosphere reserves, covering over 210,000 sq km. The most recent are the largest, with the Mexican Caribbean Biosphere Reserve (57,000 sq km) covering virtually the entire coastline of Quintano Roo, and Baja’s Pacific Islands Biosphere Reserve (10,926 sq km) encompassing the Coronado Islands near the US border. Biosphere reserves protect some of the country’s most beautiful and biologically fascinating areas, focusing on whole ecosystems with genuine biodiversity. Sustainable, community-based tourism is an important source of support for several of them, and successful visitor programs are in place in reserves like Calakmul, Sierra Gorda, Montes Azules, Mariposa Monarca, La Encrucijada and Sian Ka’an.
Nearly 90,000 sq km of Mexican landmass and coastal waters are protected as Wetlands of International Importance, known as Ramsar sites (www.ramsar.org). They are named for the Iranian town where the 1971 Convention on Wetlands of International Importance was signed. Mexico’s 142 separate sites include whale calving grounds, turtle nesting beaches, coral reefs, and coastal lagoons and mangrove forests that are of crucial importance for birds and many marine creatures.
Mexico achieved the status of a global standard-bearer on climate change in 2012 when it became only the second country (after the UK) to enshrine carbon-emission commitments into law. The climate-change law committed Mexico, currently the world’s 13th biggest carbon emitter, to be producing 35% of its electricity from renewable and nuclear energy by 2024, and to cut its carbon emissions by 50% from previously expected levels by 2050.
In 2015 it became the first non-European country to formally submit its climate-change commitments to the United Nations, with a minimum 25% cut in greenhouse-gas emissions from previously expected levels by 2030. Mexico also set a target of zero deforestation by 2030.
Air pollution and deforestation are among Mexico’s own biggest environmental problems, and while the country is one of the world’s major exporters of crude oil, it has had to import half of its gasoline because it is short on refineries. Replacing costly imports with home-grown renewable energy makes much sense. Sunny Mexico has plenty of potential for solar power, and already at least 15% of its electricity comes from hydro sources and 5% from wind and geothermal.
How the country can meet its targets is another matter. Enormous offshore discoveries in July 2017 will boost Mexico’s oil output significantly starting from 2019, with critics arguing that prospects of reducing the country’s oil dependency are slim. Wind power is the only renewable energy source that has generated significantly increased amounts of electricity in recent years.
President Peña Nieto’s six-year national development plan, announced in 2013, prioritized the crucial issue of water sustainability – a key question in a nation where the south has 70% of the water, but the north and center have 75% of the people, and around 9% of the population still lacks access to clean drinking water. The country’s water supplies are often badly polluted (which is why Mexicans are the world’s leading consumers of bottled water), and sewage is seriously inadequate in many areas. In 2015, the government moved to privatize the water system, or parts of it, on the theory that private companies could provide water cheaper, cleaner and more efficiently than the state. This decision was met with protests across the country, yet partial privatization went ahead regardless.
On another key issue – forest conservation – Mexico has achieved some success. The country has lost about three-quarters of the forests it had in pre-Hispanic times, as all types of forest from cool pine-clad highlands to tropical jungles have been cleared for grazing, logging and farming. Today only about 17% of the land is covered in primary forest, though a further 16% has regenerated or replanted forest. The good news is that, on government figures at least, deforestation rates declined from about 3500 sq km a year in the 1990s to under 1600 sq km a year today. Part of the success story is that around 70% of forests are controlled by local communities, who tend to manage them in a sustainable way.
Mexico City is a high-altitude megalopolis surrounded by a ring of mountains that traps polluted air in the city. The capital consumes over half of Mexico’s electricity and has to pump up about a quarter of its water needs from lowlands far below, then evacuate its waste water back to the lowlands via 11,000km of sewers. Efforts to improve air quality are intensifying. For years, most vehicles have been banned from the roads one day every week. The city’s climate action plan for 2014–2020 aims to cut CO₂ emissions by 30% through such means as energy-efficient buses, electric-powered taxis, more bicycle use, and a switch to energy-saving light bulbs.
The capital’s problems of water supply, sewage treatment, overcrowding and air pollution are mirrored on a smaller scale in most of Mexico’s faster-growing cities.
Tourism, a key sector of Mexico’s economy, can bring its own environmental problems with large-scale development. In 2012, then-President Felipe Calderón canceled plans for the large-scale Cabo Cortés tourism development in Baja California, because its developers had failed to show that it would be environmentally sustainable. This delighted campaigners who had argued for years that the project would seriously damage the Cabo Pulmo Marine National Park.
On the Caribbean coast’s Riviera Maya, organizations such as Centro Ecológico Akumal and Mexiconservación (www.mexiconservacion.org) work to limit damage from reckless tourism development to coral reefs, turtle-nesting beaches, mangrove systems and even the water in the area’s famed cenotes (limestone sinkholes). A slowly growing number of hotels and resorts in the region are adopting green policies.