Five-hundred hectares of mangroves are destroyed each year in Guatemala, which could devastate 40 percent of the country's mangrove ecosystems, says Carlos Albacete, of the organization Trópico Verde (Green Tropics). The environmentalist explained to Tierramérica that Guatemala's mangroves have suffered grave alterations since the mid-1950s. “First it was farming, then livestock, and later the shrimp, salt and tourism industries that caused the damage.”

Due to the deterioration, in 2001 the National Council for Protected Areas placed all mangrove species on the list of endangered flora.

According to official figures, there are 16,000 hectares of mangrove forests in Guatemala, but Trópico Verde calculates the total to be 12,000 hectares.