PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
Chacocente Wildlife Reserve is located on the Pacific coast in the department of Carazo, Nicaragua at 11°36’ to 11°30’ North and 86°08’ to 86°15’ West (Gerhardt, 1511). Chacocente is a tropical dry forest, which means there is a dry season that lasts from November to May and then the rainy season follows. In Nicaragua, tropical dry forests occur throughout the country in fragmented patches due to agriculture disrupting the natural landscape (Sabogal, 407). The tropical dry forest makes up 74 percent if the total reserve (Coria, 2015). In order for a tropical dry forest to occur it must be a frost free zone with a mean annual temperature above 63 degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius), and a mean annual rainfall between 250 and 2000 mm (Gerhardt, 1510). Chacocente has a diverse landscape of flora: The refuge consists of closed deciduous forest (1099 hectares), gallery forest (471 hectares), open low forest (1842 hectares), and a fallows area (554 hectares). The refuge also has annual crops (311 hectares), grassland (294 hectares), and beach area (71 hectares) (Gerhardt, 1511). The gallery forest along the River Escalante is well conserved. 80 percent of the land is forestry land suitable only for forestry production and protection (Sabogal, 409).
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