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Reserva Ecológica Zacatán
Playa
Gigante Rivas,
Nicaragua
The Zacatán Ecological Reserve is
small 29 acre (12 hectare) fragment of secondary forest located in
the southern Pacific coast region of
Nicaragua. Established in 2000, the
reserve represents a small pocket of ecological regeneration amidst
a sea of land development and forest fragmentation on the
Tola coast of
SW Nicaragua, which has recently been
billed as a major new tourist destination - the
"Nicaraguan Riviera." The Zacatán Reserve property was used in the
1980s and 1990s for timber and fuelwood extraction, livestock
grazing, and the cultivation of plantains and fruit trees.
The central management objective for the reserve since its
inception has been simply to allow the natural forest to
regenerate. Two adjacent buffer zone properties (see map below),
totaling nearly 60 acres (25 hectares) are also managed by the
owners of the reserve.
 
Zacatán Reserve and
friends Gigante Beach - 2 km
from Zacatán
Zacatán is a splendid – albeit somewhat degraded - example of
the Tropical
Dry
Forest biome, the
most endangered of all tropical forest types. Unlike tropical rain
forests, tropical dry forests are deciduous like the hardwood
forests of the Eastern United States. A pronounced dry season from
December to May results in most of the forest trees dropping their
leaves. But every year
around the end of May the forest re-greens in spectacular fashion
within a week or two after the first downpours of the wet
season. The wet
season (May-November) is when the forest is at its most lush and
green. Zacatán is situated mostly within a low-lying (20m
above sea level) valley surrounded by hills that rise to over 150m
(500 feet) above sea level.
Two ephemeral creeks merge in the bottom of the valley.
Gigante Beach is a 20 minute (2 km) walk from the
reserve.
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