Clinging to the Edge: A descent through Andean life
For nature in the Andes, life is a desperate push for survival, with extreme conditions facing species at every turn. A growing threat, however, is tipping nature past its breaking point.
“It’s the most ecologically diverse place on Earth”, beams Peter over the thunderous winds. He’s a Vermont native turned trekking guide in the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve, a protected area of more than 2000 square kilometres in the north-western corner of Ecuador. It is, in fact, larger than each of the world’s thirty-five smallest nations, but is Ecuador’s eighth largest protected area. Across the reserve are a bundle of ecosystems, from the soaring near-five-kilometre peak of its namesake volcano, Cotacachi, to the fringes of the nation’s coastal rainforest. Few people live on reserve lands, with just a scattering of small holdings and close-knit villages to be seen.
The upper reaches appear almost barren. ©Matthew Walsh / Finding Earth
Peter’s statement surprises me. Like many, I imagine, when picturing ‘ecological diversity’, my mind runs to other parts of the world. To East Africa, its Big 5, the great migration, hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of animals. To the Amazon, its vast swathes of sweating woodland, miles-wide rivers, and night-time hunters. To South East Asia, where tigers, elephants, and rhinoceroses bellow through the overgrowth. But no. These images of enormous wildlife spectacle do not translate directly into ecological diversity. You have to look closer than that. Here, on a precipice, three kilometres up, above the clouds, battered by dust, I am at the centre of diversity on Earth.
Above is unbroken blue. It’s when you look down that the landscape comes alive. Down the slopes can be seen bands of vegetation, each growing taller and thicker the lower you go.
Andean peaks creep out from behind the clouds. ©Matthew Walsh / Finding Earth
“It’s also one of the steepest terrestrial geological features on Earth,” Peter continues, “the western slopes of the Andes”. In parts, the range falls from its highest peaks to the Pacific shoreline in less than one hundred kilometres. The dramatic relief here, is causal to its diversity. It allows a process called altitudinal zonation to take place. As altitude changes, so too does climate, with temperatures dropping an average of 1°C for every hundred metres up. Oxygen levels also decrease as one ascends, and above the clouds, precipitation levels decrease. The cold, dry, and deoxygenated peaks of the Andes are largely bare rock, too extreme for most life. Descending, grasses and low, hardy shrubs cling to the rock, battling winds. This is where Peter and I stood. The Northern Andean Páramo.
The páramo is, at this altitude, unassuming. An ocean of waist-high grass swallowing the horizon. Though this surface-level aesthetic supports the world’s largest bird of prey, the Andean condor. A scavenger. A vulture that utilises a three-metre wingspan to glide on the near-absent air.
Plant life begins to grow greener and diversify as we descend. ©Matthew Walsh / Finding Earth
Small flowering plants come next on the descent. They are joined by stubby aloe, agave, and members of the pineapple family. These are survivors. Riddled with thorns that tear at clothes and skin alike. Though they are not the only things capable of slashing a hiker up here. Puma, the Andes’ heralded big cat, stalks these slopes. Their sandy coat and secretive nature hide them perfectly among the crags and shrubs of their territory.
Beyond the cats’ hunting grounds, small patches of forest start to emerge. They are built of thin, winding trees, with trunks moulded by the potter’s hand of the wind. Clung to their bark are colossal bromeliads, some more than half a metre wide, adding just a dash of colour with deep purples and a kiss of red. This becomes the cloud forest.
The first animals appeared to us. Cattle. Not quite the South American fauna I expected. They had wandered away from their grazing patch and into a small clearing. The cloud forest is simply the most aptly named ecoregion on the planet. If you are lucky enough to see beyond the trees, then you can be sure the clouds will roll in and take your view from you. At these altitudes, a lucky wanderer may encounter spectacled bears, the continents only bear species and largest carnivorous animal. Although they would rather snack on fruits than a lost walker.
Cattle descend from the mist. ©Matthew Walsh / Finding Earth
Out of the forests and just beyond the reserve boundary is where the landscape changes the most, however. This is where the cattle came from. The land is struggling. A roughly carved dirt and rock track splits the mountain. A lethargic barbed wire fence holds back the encroaching forest from an empty pasture. All around, the foothills are clear. No trees. No bromeliads. No bears. No puma. Not even condors above. The land has been stripped. First for logging, then for cattle. A maniacal monoculture of grazing land growing up the slopes. And this growth isn’t stopping. As the human population increases, and even subsistence farmers begin to need to turn a profit, their pastures grow. Illegal loggers move in and pull down the forests. Earth’s most ecologically diverse region shrinks.
Perhaps if the region boasted those hundred-thousand-strong herds of wildebeest, or a population of elephants and tigers, this would stop, or at least garner some international attention. The Northern Andes stand testament to a prime failing in people, that what cannot be seen on the surface can be so easily missed by most, and, as a result, the most diverse region on the planet is losing its title.
