Cerro Arenal Natural Reserve (Spanish: Reserva Natural Cerro Arenal) is a natural reserve with an area of 14.28 square kilometres in the Cordillera Dariense, it is located in the Matagalpa department in central Nicaragua. [1]
Spanish or Castilian, is a Romance language that originated in the Iberian Peninsula and today has over 450 million native speakers in Spain and in the Americas. It is a global language and the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese.
A cordillera is an extensive chain of mountains or mountain ranges. The term is a borrowed from Spanish, with the same meaning. The Spanish word originates from cordilla, a diminutive of "cuerda" or "rope". It is most commonly used in the field of physical geography.
Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the largest country in the Central American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the northwest, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Managua is the country's capital and largest city and is also the third-largest city in Central America, behind Tegucigalpa and Guatemala City. The multi-ethnic population of six million includes people of indigenous, European, African, and Asian heritage. The main language is Spanish. Indigenous tribes on the Mosquito Coast speak their own languages and English.
The Cerro Arenal Natural Reserve was declared a protected area on November 4, 1991, it compromises one of 78 protected areas of Nicaragua and is managed by Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA).
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the enabling laws of each country or the regulations of the international organizations involved.
The protected areas of Nicaragua are areas that have natural beauty or significance and are protected by Nicaragua. Nicaragua has 78 protected areas that cover 22,422 km², about 17.3% of the nations landmass. The National System of Protected Areas (SINAP) is administered by the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA).
The highest point in the reserve is located inside a tropical cloud forest 1,570 meters above sea level, [1] rain occurs 8 months annually, between May and December. Cerro Arenal Natural Reserve is one of the smallest protected areas of Nicaragua and is abundant with flora and fauna. [2] Many animals are present throughout the reserve, animals such as monkeys, and armadillos. The reserve also contains the oldest oak trees in Central America. [1]
A cloud forest, also called a water forest and primas forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level, formally described in the International Cloud Atlas (2017) as silvagenitus. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and vegetation, in which case they are also referred to as mossy forests. Mossy forests usually develop on the saddles of mountains, where moisture introduced by settling clouds is more effectively retained.
Mean sea level (MSL) is an average level of the surface of one or more of Earth's bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datum – a standardised geodetic datum – that is used, for example, as a chart datum in cartography and marine navigation, or, in aviation, as the standard sea level at which atmospheric pressure is measured to calibrate altitude and, consequently, aircraft flight levels. A common and relatively straightforward mean sea-level standard is instead the midpoint between a mean low and mean high tide at a particular location.
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animal life is fauna. Flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms gut flora or skin flora.
