Montecristo

Montecristo National Park was established in 1987 at the north-western tip of El Salvador, in the department of Santa Ana, and protects some 20 km². Its summit, Cerro Montecristo, at some 2,418 metres, is the point where the borders of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras meet, known as the Trifinio.

Its value is the cloud forest. Above 2,100 metres, the permanent mist keeps relative humidity close to a hundred per cent and the temperature constant, and the forest of oak, cypress and sweetgum is entirely covered in mosses, orchids, bromeliads and ferns growing on trunks and branches. The trees reach thirty metres and form a canopy so closed that hardly any light reaches the ground.

It is one of the last fragments of this ecosystem in El Salvador, the most deforested country in mainland Central America, and it is home to quetzal, spider monkey, puma and amphibians endemic to the massif. The three countries have developed the Trifinio Plan to manage the region jointly, and the whole is recognised as the Trifinio Fraternidades Transboundary Biosphere Reserve, designated by UNESCO in 2011 and extended since.