Conservation of mountain forests through ecotourism management in San Cristbal de Las Casas, Chiapas Mexico

The mountain forests of Los Altos de Chiapas have been fragmented and their structure and floristic composition have been modified due to logging, agriculture, and urban growth. An alternative that has been promoted for its conservation is ecotourism. The objective was to diagnose the effectiveness of ecotourism management in the conservation of mountain forests in the Arcotete, Grutas de Mamut and Grutas de Rancho Nuevo Ecotourism Parks in the municipality of San Cristobal de Las Casas. Variables of vertical and horizontal structure and use of the forest were registered in plots of 1,000 m2. Diversity indices of Hill numbers and an ecological condition index per plot were calculated through a deterministic model. Satellite images from the years 2005, 2011, 2015, 2021 were processed to obtain changes in land use. Arcotete and Grutas de Mamut had an ecological condition index of the forest of 0.5 and Grutas de Rancho Nuevo of 0.3, which indicates that the first 2 have an intermediate state of conservation. It is concluded that ecotourism allowed the increase in forest cover that translates into a low and moderate ecological condition.