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Colombia’s Cloud Forests Imperiled by Climate Change, Development
Posted by Daily Climate: Autumn Spanne on December 4th, 2012
Daily Climate: Five hours by truck and mule from the nearest town, a rumbling generator cuts through the silent night to power large spotlights as botanists crouch and kneel on large blue tarps spread across a cow pasture. It's nearly midnight, and the team works urgently to describe every detail of the dozens of colorful orchids, ferns and other exotic plants they have collected that day in Las Orquídeas National Park, one of the single most biologically diverse places on the planet. For nearly two weeks, each...
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Colombia’s cities at risk as Andes high above undergo change
Posted by Daily Climate: Autumn Spanne on December 3rd, 2012
Daily Climate: Nearly a mile above this city of almost eight million is a rugged, fog-shrouded world, silent except for the trickle of water and whispering wind pushing through the treeless tundra.
This is Chingaza, a national park 40 miles from Bogotá in the eastern range of the Colombian Andes.
Known as páramos, these ecosystems at more than 11,000 feet above sea level exist only in Central and South America, the majority in Colombia. Páramos resemble a sort of alpine archipelago, each a link in the chain...