Arturo Gómez-Pompa Professor of Ecology and Botany in the Faculty of Sciences of the National University in the Institute of Biology at UNAM. These distinctive and academic positions have gained Gómez-Pompa a prestigious reputation in the ecological world. He discovered the use of Theobroma cacao, or the tree of chocolate, as ancient crops in rejolladas and cenotes within the Yucatán Peninsula. This confirmed his hypothesis on the anthropogenic origins of the Mayan forests and advanced future research in the domestication of tropical trees. Gómez-Pompa created a database for the Flora of Veracruz project in the 1960s that is still utilized to this
Flora of Belize cleared, although clearing of mangroves near Belize's main coastal settlements (e.g. Belize City and San Pedro) was relatively high. The rate of loss of Belize's mangroves - at 0.07% per year between 1980 and 2010 - was much lower than Belize's overall rate of forest clearing (0.6% per year between 1980 and 2010). As well as logwood ("Haematoxylon campechianum") and mahogany ("Swietenia macrophylla") two other important Belizean timber trees of note are the Santa Maria ("Calophyllum antillanum") and cedar ("Cedrela mexicana"). Other economically important trees include cotton tree or kapok (Ceiba pentandra), and cacao (Theobroma cacao). Chicle (Manilkara chicle) is