ABSTRACT:
In order to promote forest plantations in Mexico, the federal government has implemented, since 1977, programs such as the Commercial Forest Plantations Development Program (PRODEPLAN) and in 2000 launched the Strategic Forest Program for Mexico 2025. In spite of these initiatives, nowadays there are new programs (The Sembrando Vida Program) recording a critical deforestation rate of 115 thousand hectares per year and a population decrease of forest species which are endemics for Mexico and Central America. The main focus of the Sembrando Vida Program is the rescue of four timber species, although red cedar (Cedrela odorata L) and mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla King) are the two main ones. Both species are being produced under nurseries conditions, for future commercial plantations, in the state of Chiapas Mexico but there is a lack of information about the best agroecological conditions to be planted. The objective of this work was to determine the productive potential areas for cedar and mahogany under rainfed conditions in the state of Chiapas. The Arc/View version 3.3 software, which is a Geographic Information System developed by the American company ESRI was used to process and analyze the information. The results indicate that under rainfed conditions there are 81,116 hectares of high potential for cedar and 91,939 for mahogany, and 428,465 hectares of medium potential for cedar and 629,000 for mahogany.