The Guatemalan Constitutional Court put a 15-day halt on the transfer of a portion of the protected Sierra de las Minas to a logging company. The high court ruled that there is a risk of irreparable harm to the reserve’s natural resources and gave the parties involved 15 days to present their arguments.

Covering 236,000 hectares, the Sierra de las Minas has been protected since 1992, and UNESCO declared it a biosphere reserve in 1992. Nearly half of the area is a cloud forest, home to numerous plant and animal species that are in danger of extinction.

The National Protected Areas Council agreed in March to grant the Maderas el Alto logging company the right to exploit 4,000 hectares of the reserve.

But the Defenders of Nature organization and mayors and communities of nine municipalities demanded that the court annul the permit because Sierra de las Minas provides the freshwater supply to those areas.