Country

Belize: 3 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Three Neotropic ecoregions cover Belize, and all are tropical. The Petén-Veracruz moist forests hold the interior and south, the Yucatán moist forests reach in from the drier north, and the small Belizian pine savannas occupy sandy lowland ground where open pine woodland replaces closed forest. That combination gives Belize a hot, humid character with a real gradient: rainier broadleaf forest southward, a more seasonal Yucatán edge to the north, and fire-shaped savanna in between. Broadleaf tropicals thrive in most of the country, but the pine savannas are a reminder that drainage and soil, not just rainfall, decide what grows; the poor sandy soils there favor pines and tough grasses over forest species.