Central America

A directory covering the central American region and six countries : Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. For each country, a general description of the state of the environment is followed by a list of citations with abstracts of key environmental assessments and plans and a list of contacts in international, regional and national organisations.

Descended from a long and ancient lineage, tapirs are important tropical forest seed dispersers. However, today, all species of tapirs are threatened to various degrees by habitat destruction and hunting. This action plan was written with wildlife biologists, ecologists, administrators, educators and local conservation officials in mind and is aimed at those countries with tapir populations.

This study makes use of extensive spatial datasets, not previously available, to provide for the first time a comprehensive assessment of the conservation status of biodiversity in the terrestrial tropics. The extent to which potential habitats and closed moist forests are represented in protected areas is assessed. Priorities for conservation action are identified on the basis of a country's relative importance for a given habitat and the extent to which it is protected.