Qualla: Napo moist forests

Napo moist forests: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Le mashk, CC BY-SA 3.0. Consider a patch of forest one hundred meters on each side, the size of two American football fields. In the Napo moist forests of western Amazonia, that single hectare contains more than 310 different tree species. For comparison, the entire contiguous United States holds roughly 700 native tree species. Now scale up. The Yasuni Biosphere Reserve, a portion of this ecoregion in Ecuador, contains around 4,000 plant species, at least 70 species of mammals, more than 500 species of birds, and over 400 species of fish in its rivers. There are places on Earth more famous for biodiversity. There is no place more biodiverse than this one.

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Image: Le mashk | CC BY-SA 3.0

Napo moist forests: Where the Andes Surrender

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, CC BY 2.0. The Napo moist forests span 25 million hectares across Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, wrapping around the base of the Andes where the mountains finally exhaust themselves into floodplain. To the west, the Cordillera Oriental montane forests climb the slopes of the range. To the sou...

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Image: Geoff Gallice from Gainesville | CC BY 2.0

Napo moist forests: The Physics of Profusion

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, CC BY 2.0. Rainfall in the western Napo exceeds 4,000 millimeters per year. Even in the drier east the total remains above 3,000 millimeters. Temperatures hover near 26 degrees Celsius year-round. The soil, layered from ancient Guiana Shield material mixed with younger Andean sediments, sup...

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Image: Geoff Gallice from Gainesville | CC BY 2.0

Napo moist forests: Everything That Moves

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Timothy.dhalleine, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Yasuni Biosphere Reserve, at the heart of this ecoregion, is one of the best-documented examples. Among its mammals are thirteen species of primates - silvery woolly monkeys, Venezuelan red howlers, white-bellied spider monkeys, monk sakis - swinging through the high canopy. ...

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Image: Timothy.dhalleine | CC BY-SA 3.0

Napo moist forests: The Price of Oil

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, CC BY 2.0. Ecuador's Amazon holds significant petroleum reserves. In the 1960s, Texaco began extracting oil from the Oriente, and in the decades since, roads built to service oil wells have served as arteries of deforestation. Where the roads go, colonists follow. Where colonists settle, fo...

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Image: Geoff Gallice from Gainesville | CC BY 2.0

Napo moist forests: Those Who Have Chosen Silence

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, FL, USA, CC BY 2.0. Yasuni National Park was established in 1979 and designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1989, joined with the surrounding Waorani Ethnic Reserve to form a protected landscape of 2.8 million hectares. Within its boundaries live the Tagaeri and Taromenane, clans of the Huaorani w...

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Image: Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, FL, USA | CC BY 2.0