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Today both natural ecosystems and traditional cultures are at risk from logging, road building, mining, oil exploitation, colonization schemes. With the region's burgeoning population growth, plans for more further economic development loom on the horizon. Recognizing the inevitability of economic change in the Andes, CI is working with many partners to forge development strategies that do not harm the region's diversity of cultures or species. |
Within the Andean Region region live more than 50 percent of all
bird species found in the Neotropics, as well as 44 percent of all
Neotropical mammals. One biologist found 43 ant species living in
a single tree in Peru—the same number of species found in the
entire British isles. This abundance, combined with high levels
of endemism—the numbers of plant and animal species that live
nowhere else—make the Andes region one of the world's top ecological
"hotspots." CI works in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador.
Taken from Conservation International www.conservation.org