Swietenia Macrophylla - Natural Range

Natural Range

Mahogany’s natural range stretches from Mexico at 23º N of the equator down the Central American Atlantic coastal strip into South America, continuing in a broad southeasterly arc from Venezuela through Amazonian regions to points as far south as 18º S in Bolivia. Countries where mahogany naturally occurs include Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia. Its distribution generally corresponds to forests classified as ‘tropical dry’ with 1000–2000 mm annual precipitation. Mahogany also grows in humid and subtropical zones, at elevations ranging from sea level in Central America up to 1400 m in the Andean foothills of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, in a wide variety of soil types and soil conditions.

FB Lamb’s 1966 estimate of mahogany’s historic range in South America was based on anecdotal reports and his wide travels during the first half of the 20th Century rather than on structured inventories. In a study by Martinez et al. (2008) and later published by Grogan et al. (2010), expert respondents revised Lamb’s estimate for South America downward by 19% to 278 million hectares, roughly equivalent to the total land area of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru combined. Reductions were most pronounced in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil, where Lamb’s range overlapped extensive areas of savanna, cerrado, and scrub woodland that are unsuitable for mahogany. Brazil alone accounts for 57% of the revised historic range in South America, most of this occurring along the seasonally dry southern rim of closed Amazon forests. Nearly 7% of mahogany’s revised historic range in South America is under legal protection, and an additional 15% lies within legally recognized Indigenous Lands.

The following country-level descriptions of big-leaf mahogany’s natural range in South America are excerpted from Martinez et al. (2008).