The Trifinio biosphere reserve is located where El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras meet their border, thus the prefix tri in its name. It covers an area of 221 km² and was created in 1987 to protect the Montecristo's cloud forest

Cloud forest

A cloud forest, also called a fog forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical evergreen montane moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and...

 and its rare flora and fauna. The dense cloud forest of oak and laurel trees, that grow up to 30 meters, houses rare wildlife species like the two-fingered Anteater, Striped Owl

Striped Owl

The Striped Owl is a medium-sized owl with large ear tufts and a brownish-white facial disk rimmed with black. Its beak is black, and it has cinnamon-colored eyes. It has shorter, rounder wings than most of its close relatives. The upperparts are cinnamon with fine black vermiculation and heavy...

s, toucan

Toucan

Toucans are members of the family Ramphastidae of near passerine birds from the Neotropics. The family is most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five genera and about forty different species...

s, agouti

Central American Agouti

The Central American Agouti is an agouti species from the family Dasyproctidae. The species is widespread in Mesoamerica and South America. The northern section of the range occurs from Chiapas and the Yucatan Peninsula to northern Ecuador and Colombia and western Venezuela...

s. pumas and spider monkey

Spider monkey

Spider monkeys of the genus Ateles are New World monkeys in the subfamily Atelinae, family Atelidae. Like other atelines, they are found in tropical forests of Central and South America, from southern Mexico to Brazil...

s.

The Montecristo massif is an area where the borders of Guatemala, Honduras

Honduras

Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...

 and El Salvador

El Salvador

El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...

 meet, and its protection was a joint initiative of these three countries, which resulted in the creation of the Montecristo Trifinio National Park

Montecristo Trifinio National Park

Montecristo Trifinio National Park is a national park in Honduras. It was established on 1 January 1987 and covers an area of 54 square kilometres....

 in Honduras and the Montecristo National Park

Montecristo National Park

Montecristo National Park is a large national park centered around the Montecristo cloud forest in Mesoamerica. Montecristo National Park is located in the North-eastern tip of the country of El Salvador, a country in Central America known for its wild life diversity.-See also:*Montecristo Trifinio...

 in El Salvador, as well as the Guatemalan Trifinio biosphere reserve.

The protection of the Montecristo massif was part of a broader plan, known as the Trifinio plan, to develop this border region.