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Located in South America. Tumbes –Chocó- Magdalena
spans across 4 countries.
•Panama
•Colombia including the Malpelo Islands
•Ecuador including the Galapagos Islands.
•Peru
Tumbes- Chocó- Magdalena is located in-between 2 other
hotspots.
Hotspot Original Extent (km2)
274,597
Hotspot Vegetation Remaining (km2)
65,903
Endemic Species Plant
2,750
Endemic Threatened Birds
21
Endemic Threatened Mammals
7
Endemic Threatened Amphibians
8
Extinct Species
4
Human Population Density (People/km2)
51
Area Protected (km2)
34,338
Area Protected (km2) in Categories 1-4
18,814
•The Tumbes-Chocó- Magdalena hotspot extends 1,500km and encompasses
274,500km of western coast of the Andes Mountains.
•From the Panama Canal the hotspot extends south and east to the wet and
moist forest of Panama Darien Province, through to the Chocó region of
Colombia and he moist forest along g the west coast of Ecuador and into the
dry region of eastern Ecuador.
•The rest of the hotspot is within the Pacific Ocean , in addition to the
mainland areas the Island of Malpelo off the coast of Colombia and the
Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador are also included in the hotspot.
•The hotspot includes a wide variety of habitats ranging from
mangroves,beaches,rocky shorelines to some of the wettest rainforests in the
Colombian Chocó.
•Some of South America’s only remaining coastal dry forests occur in this
hotspot.
Plants:
There are approximately 11,000 species of plant in Tumbes –Chocó –Magdalena of which
2,700 of these are endemic. 5,000 of these species are found in the Colombian Chocó.
e.g. Schlegelia which is pictured .
Birds:
Tumbes –Chocó- Magdalena holds approximately 900 species of birds
which 110 of them are endemic and can be found nowhere else in the world.
E.g. The Long-Wattled Umbrella Bird which is pictured.
Mammals:
There are more than 285 species of mammals with 11 of the being
endemic. This includes the spider monkey. Half of the regions endemic
species live on the Galapagos Island including the fur seal and the Jaguar.
Reptiles
There are more than 320reptile species with nearly 100 being endemic and 20
being from the Galapagos Island.
Amphibians
There are 200 species of amphibians with
30 being endemic, with new species being
discovered quiet frequently. The most
known amphibian is the Poison Golden
Dart frog which is the 3rd most poisonous
vertebrae in the world and is only found
in the Saija River in southern Chocó.
Fresh Water Fish
There is about 250 species of fish with nearly half being endemic with
the most endemism being centred around Magdalena and Atrar Valleys.
There is a single endemic species , The Galapagos Cusk-eel on the
Galapagos.
Human pressures within this hotspot vary widely from area to area. Some parts, like coastal Ecuador, are among the most
highly threatened in South America and others, like northern Chocó, remain fairly intact.
Across the hotspot, threats range from the effects of climate change and ultraviolet radiation on amphibians to agricultural
conversion and infrastructure development that increase colonization pressure, to hunting, particularly of larger birds and
mammals.
Throughout the hotspot, ecosystems are under threat from over-exploitation for timber and fuel wood, as well as mass
clearing for shrimp aquaculture.
The coastal forests of Ecuador are in terrible straits, with only about two percent of their original forest cover left. This forest
destruction has mostly resulted from explosive population growth, doubling of agricultural activity, major increases in timber
extraction, and the establishment of large-scale plantation forests of palm oil and eucalyptus.
Panama's Darién retains about 65 percent of its original forest, it is threatened today by the proposed extension of the PanAmerican Highway south through the Darién and possibly into Colombia.
The Colombian Chocó is still largely intact and undeveloped, but large-scale development in the area may be looming. Public
and private investors have proposed a number of roads, an inter-oceanic canal, train routes, and hydroelectric dams.
Small- and medium-scale mining, agricultural expansion, and timber extraction also threaten the integrity of the Chocó.
The Galápagos Islands have been seriously impacted by invasive alien species, and only three of the larger islands are
considered relatively unaltered by human activity.
On the whole, about 63,000 square kilometres, or 24 percent of the original vegetation, remains in pristine condition in this
region, with most of the intact forests located in the Colombian Chocó and parts of Panama's Darién Province.
Although about 12.5 percent of the hotspot is under some
form of protection, only about 6.9 percent of the land area is
conserved in protected areas that fall within IUCN.This area
is inadequate to ensure the survival of the region's diversity.
A number of small, but important, private reserves are found
in the hotspot, including the 30-km² Bilsa Biological
Reserve, which protects one of the last remaining stands of
undisturbed forest in this part of Western Ecuador. Although
they do not ensure biodiversity conservation, indigenous
reserves also serve as an important component of regional
conservation and sustainable use. In the Awá Indigenous
Reserves spanning the Colombia-Ecuador border, the local
people have instituted controls on hunting, an important step
towards maintaining the forests and preserving ecological
processes.
Among the proposed conservation measures for the region is
the Chocó-Manabí Conservation Corridor. This corridor,
which spans more than 60,000 km² in Colombia and
Ecuador, aims to link many of the protected areas in the
region, including Katios National Park, Utría and Tatamá
National Parks in Colombia, and Machalilla National Park,
Mache Chindul Ecological Reserve and Cotacachi-Cayapas
Ecological Reserve in Ecuador.
The Global Conservation Fund at Conservation International is
supporting several initiatives in north-western Ecuador focused on
protecting the remaining intact lowland forests in and around the
Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve and the Awá Ethnic
Reserve.
The Colombian and Panamanian portion of the hotspot, the
Damage in Ecuador has been too severe. In Ecuador, the survival
of some species may depend on reactive conservation operations in
the shrinking wet and dry forests. In the Tumbesian Region
(southern Ecuador and northern Peru), there is a proposal to
establish a transboundary biosphere reserve that would include the
Biosphere Reserve of the Northeast, which encompasses three
protected areas in Peru, along with the Arenillas Ecological
Reserve and several Protected Forests in Ecuador (Puyango,
Jatumpamba-Jorupe).
The Galápagos Islands, which have long been a focus of
conservation and investment, is now recognized as both a World
Heritage Site and a Biosphere Reserve.
Along with creating additional parks and corridors, the future of
conservation in the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena hotspot will depend
on adequate protection and enforcement to keep existing reserves
intact. Lack of management capacity and enforcement has led to
severe deforestation in some existing parks, including the
Machalilla National Park in south-western Ecuador and the Los
Katios National Park in Colombia. Since January 2002, the Critical
Ecosystem Partnership Fund has invested $3.3 million in the
Chocó-Manabí portion of the hotspot to fund 24 projects focused
on field activities and strengthening local NGO capacity.