Preliminary identification of conservation priorities

Within Peru’s Northern Andes, the spectacled bear and mountain tapir populations cling to their survival. In isolated refuges, they inhabit one of the world’s most important centers of biological diversity, endemism and high biodiversity conservation priority (Myers et al., 2000).

This center of biodiversity, or Ecoregion, termed the Northern Andes Ecoregion Complex (NAEC) by WWF (2001), includes the tropical Andean Highlands and intermontane valleys of western Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and northern Peru.