Country

Ecuador: 11 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Few countries pack as much ecological range into as little space as Ecuador, where eleven ecoregions meet. The Amazonian east lies in the Napo moist forests; the Andes carry the Eastern Cordillera Real and Northwest Andean montane forests up into the Northern Andean páramo and Cordillera Central páramo; and the Pacific side runs from the Western Ecuador moist forests south into the Ecuadorian and Tumbes-Piura dry forests, with mangroves and the Guayaquil flooded grasslands along the coast. Offshore, the Galápagos Islands xeric scrub adds a desert island system. Elevation, not latitude, sets the growing climate: hot and wet in the lowlands, mild and cloud-fed on the slopes, cold and windswept in the páramo. Gardeners here choose by altitude first and rainfall second.