El Mirador- Rio Azul National Park and Biotopo Dos Lagunas, with an extension of 1400 square kilometers or 541 square miles, is a core or nucleus zone within the Maya Biosphere Reserve. It is, without any doubt, the best preserved park in Guatemala , where human intervention and human presence is almost nil. For years there was a vacuum of authority on the part of CONAP, the National Council of Protected Areas, whose mandate is to guarantee the conservation of Guatemala 's biodiversity and samples of their ecosystems. This authority gap was the case for years and is again the case now, except between October 2008 and May 2010 when Engineer Francisco Asturias Ortiz served as the park's director. Our company greatly supported the work, presence and figure of the park's director and donated, among other things, the production of a video documentary named MIRADOR RIO AZUL NATIONAL PARK : A FANTASTIC PARK in November of 2008.

The post of the park's director is so far still empty and the presence of CONAP is consistently missing from the park. However, patrolling, safeguarding the natural and cultural heritage and the care and supervision of the park's visitors has always been a role effectively played by the INSTITUTE OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND HISTORY-IDAEH- park guards, both at the Rio Azul- Ixcan Rio section as well as at El Mirador and Nakbe, and the park guards deployed by the CECON Center for Conservationist Studies of the University of San Carlos de Guatemala at the Naachtun- Dos Lagunas Biotope Reserve. The CONAP park guards, who are in the El Cedro checkpoint, continue working with the support of some conservation NGOs and trying not to deviate from the objectives set and keep the spirit of the recently completed park administration.

The park has good opportunities for conservation if solutions may be negotiated with forest concessions surrounding the park to avoid the entry of outsiders to it, avoid road construction and to prevent people with other interests from easily getting into the park. It would be best to reach agreements with the forest concession directives to preserve larger areas of forest within these concessions in the multiple use zone of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, for which all efforts to find mechanisms and incentives is a priority for the park's long-term success in management and conservation. There are some efforts to change the current zoning of the park and encourage the creation of the Mirador Natural and Cultural Zone, but we believe that it must achieved and consolidated without affecting the efforts and the achievement in and of itself represented by the current state and the effective conservation of the national park and the knowledge of how to deal with the small pockets of existing problems. We recommend the park's conservation efforts become a sample of intelligent and capable negotiation with the park's stakeholders and neighbors and avoid creating unnecessary opposition to the firms and professionals that drive the rezoning of the park (which is not supported by the population at large or by the people of El Peten in particular, is also completely unnecessary and not a priority for the park's conservation objectives) but is, above all, legally incompatible with the contractual commitments of the State of Guatemala (pretending to eliminate forest concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve completely.)

What is certain is that if the administrative staff and the park guards represent the authority at the park and they need all the help they can receive from the private sector, as the government entities they work with have limited budgets. The park staff's surveillance and patrol units need equipment and improvements in their living conditions (of the park guards) by means of in-kind donations of medicines, food, fire-fighting equipment, compasses, GPS, training, kitchen sets, ecological stoves, etc. Therefore, Ecotourism and Adventure Specialists has donated 16 trash cans for the park and began a program of solid waste separation in El Mirador and has spared no effort in providing full support to the comfort, provisioning and upgrading of the IDAEH park guards' living conditions at El Mirador (and previously of the park's director) and supports the management, maintenance and conservation of the park's water resources. Our company has also supported the cleaning and fumigation of designated camping areas for tourism to lessen the insect-related hardship and very precarious conditions for campers. Other NGOs support the monitoring work in other areas of the park and both our company and these NGOs appreciate any support they may receive to continue these efforts in support of conservation and of the park's officials. You may also become involved in this effort. For more information write the Association for the Development of the Maya World NGO at mayaworld@mayaworld.org expressing your interest as it is through this organization that any help and in-kind donations made directly to the park's employees are channeled.