Medio Ambiente, Vida Silvestre, Cultura
The Cumbres de Monterrey National Park
Introduction
Every time we hike La Huasteca, Chipinque or the Sierra de Santiago, we set foot in one of the largest and most biodiverse national parks in Mexico. Here's what makes the Cumbres de Monterrey National Park so special and so fragile.
A park the size of a city
The Cumbres de Monterrey National Park is huge: in its redelimitation decree (published in the Official Gazette of the Federation on October 17, 2000) it was set at 177,395 hectares, spread across eight municipalities: Allende, García, Montemorelos, Monterrey, Rayones, Santa Catarina, Santiago and San Pedro Garza García. It is, literally, the mountain range that surrounds and defines the city.
And it used to be even larger: when Lázaro Cárdenas declared it a Protected Natural Area, by decree of November 24, 1939, it spanned 246,500 hectares (the largest park in Mexico at the time) and included more areas toward Santiago and the Carretera Nacional that the year-2000 redelimitation left out. Even then its goals were the same ones that concern us today: maintaining the region's water balance through plant cover, preventing erosion and controlling the floods of the Santa Catarina river.
Even so it remains gigantic: it is the largest land national park in Mexico (the country's most extensive ones are marine). To give a sense of scale, its nearly 1,774 km² would make it larger than U.S. parks like Zion, Rocky Mountain or Grand Teton, and comparable to Sequoia; it would rank mid-table among the more than 60 national parks of the United States.
A treasure of biodiversity
These mountains are among the richest in life in all of Mexico. The park is home to at least 1,368 species of flora and fauna, of which 73 are in some risk category. To put it in perspective, according to the Conservation and Management Program the park concentrates around 280 bird species (out of the 1,050 in the whole country), 71 mammals, 58 reptiles, 14 amphibians and 271 arthropods.
The area has the second-highest concentration of pine and oak species in the country, and ranks first in Mexico for bird endemism. That's why CONABIO recognizes it as a Priority Terrestrial Region and a key biological corridor: the Sierra Madre Oriental works as a bridge of temperate forests connecting northern ecosystems with southern ones.
Who lives here
We share the trail with extraordinary neighbors. The park is home to the black bear (Ursus americanus eremicus), endangered, and the maroon-fronted parrot (Rhynchopsitta terrisi), a bird endemic to the Sierra Madre Oriental with a population of fewer than 2,000 individuals that nests in the pine-oak forests. Also the ocelot, the jaguarundi, the peregrine falcon and the spotted owl.
The park isn't uninhabited either: within its boundaries live around 2,200 people spread across some 34 population centers (ejidos and communities such as Laguna de Sánchez, Ciénega de González, San Antonio de la Osamenta or La Trinidad), whose families have spent generations caring for the mountain and depending on it.
And the black bear wasn't always the only one: centuries ago the grizzly bear also inhabited these ranges, now extinct in the region. We tell the full story in our article Everything about the American Black Bear in Nuevo León, where you'll also see that Cumbres Park holds the largest black bear population in the state.
And every winter it welcomes a famous traveler: the monarch butterfly. The Sierra Madre is the first great forested massif on its migration route from the northeastern United States and Canada; they used to arrive punctually between the last week of October and the first of November, and return in early March. Seeing that loyalty to the calendar is a reminder of why it's worth caring for the forest that receives them.
The pine-oak forest, an ecosystem in transition
One of the most amazing things about the park is how much it changes with altitude, and above all how its ecosystems mix. In the low, dry areas desert scrublands dominate (rosetophyllous, microphyllous and submontane), with lechuguilla, creosote bush, blackbrush acacia and cenizo. As we climb and humidity rises, chaparral and pine-oak forests appear, and in the cool ravines the gallery forest, with Montezuma cypress, poplars and willows along the rivers.
What makes it unique is that it's a transition forest: a meeting point where worlds that don't normally touch coexist. Here a huge variety of pines grow (pinyon, Arizona pine, real pine, Chinese pine, among others) side by side with desert flora like prickly pears, lechuguilla and agaves. Seeing a pine shading a nopal sums up the rarity of this range.
Higher up, above 2,500 meters, relict jewels of colder climates survive: the pinabete, the Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), the white fir (Abies vejari) and even the very rare Picea mexicana. Climbing one of these mountains means crossing, in just a few hours, from the desert to a temperate forest. That altitudinal contrast is exactly what makes the landscape we love so unique.
The park that collects Monterrey's water
Beyond its beauty, the park plays a vital role: around 50% of the water that supplies more than 5 million residents of Monterrey and its metropolitan area is captured in the Park. The plant cover and the soil act as a sponge that infiltrates the rain and feeds the rivers and aquifers we drink from.
That's why caring for the mountain isn't just an abstract environmental cause: it's caring for the water that comes out of our taps. When the forest is lost to fires or to the spread of the city, the natural system that provides water and holds back floods for the whole city is weakened.
Important rules to keep in mind
Monterrey's growth puts enormous pressure on the park: land-use change, settlements in risk zones, overuse of trails. And since families and communities live inside it, visiting it well is as much a matter of respect as of the environment. The basics to keep in mind:
Don't build campfires. The fire risk is extremely high and it's prohibited.
Always ask permission to enter a property. Much of the park is private or ejido land.
Close any gates you open. There is free-ranging livestock and many families depend on that ranching.
If you go in a 4x4, don't leave the road and respect the speed limits: these are not high-speed roads, and there have been cases of ejido members and livestock run over by razers.
Take all your trash with you.
Be kind to the locals. They are the ones who care for the mountain every day.
Caring for these peaks is caring for our heritage, our water, the wildlife and the communities that exist only here.
References
- CONANP (2006). Conservation and Management Program, Cumbres de Monterrey National Park. National Commission of Natural Protected Areas, SEMARNAT. Mexico, December 2006.