I Speak For The Trees

This month’s BKAB is the Interandean Valley; the photo was taken in the heart of Loja City, capital of the Loja Province, and shows the Rio Zamora, which flows longitudinally through the city.  Interandean valleys are a difficult biome to classify exactly, as their climates and vegetation normally vary quite widely from the North of Ecuador to the South.  I shall treat them separately; in this case, the BKAB for July is in fact the Souther Interandean Valley.  Often, this is the intermediary biome between true Paramo and Cloud Forests, and as such may incorporate species from both.

In the case of Loja and its surrounds, the valley is situated between the Cordillera Real and the Cordillera de Loja, an area with long, hot and fairly dry summers, and a very wet rainy season (last year’s flooded the city and washed out major portions of the main highway.)  The tree life for the Loja valley is largely made up of  Fiqui (Acacia horridus), Huilco (Anadenaethera colubrina), spreading Willows, and the odd Ceiba (Ceiba pentandra).  Other trees are represented, but sparsely, as most of the hills have been cleared for Coffee and Avocado plantations.  The long, hot summers of the biome, combined with its average altitude of about 1400 meters above sea level, make the area ideal for coffee production, and much of Ecuador’s premium coffee is grown in the Loja province.  The short rainy season provides enough water for production of Guava and Papaya, as well as a number of varieties of citrus, and the lower parts of the valleys (closest to the rivers) are used for Sugarcane production.  Pampas grass is a common sight, as are Agaves and cacti of many and varying descriptions.

The valley system ranges from verdant montane forests in the northernmost part of the biome, to semidesert in the south around the towns of Vilcabamba and Malacatos.  The wetter areas are normally cleared for use as pasture, which is contributing to the desertification of the region; paradoxically in the south, which is already well along in the drying process, the government and the Fundacion Jocotoco have preserved the Parque Nacional Podocarpus, which is more indicative of the true nature of the biome’s flora and fauna.  Long human presence has certainly left its mark on the valleys, and continues to do so.