Chapter 2

This chapter is broken down into talking about the many different regions throughout

Ecuador, and their economic structure throughout the years of political change. Ecuador is one of

the most biodiverse countries in the entire world, with its Large coastal region with many

different marine mammals. The large stretch of Andes spanning throughout the country that

provides massive, abrupt elevation changes from the shallow low-lying coast. Along with the

very dense chunk of rain forest that reaches over from Central South America. And most of all,

the Galapagos islands, where plant and animal life is like no others in the world due to its perfect

proximity from land. This island is the prime jewel of Ecuador, hosting a large expensive portion

of its tourism, and having a very rich center for scientific research.

This small country contains roughly 10% of the entire worlds plant species and about

17% of the worlds bird species, all condensed into an area about the size of New England. This

makes the area very sought after for research, but also very susceptible to destruction from

encroaching construction.

Areas such as the rainforest face many issues from oil drilling due to their extremely

delicate ecosystem, but their very rich underlying oil reserves.

The Andes mountain ranges find issues with strip mining, and destroying their natural

habitat, though the push against strip mining is keeping them more at bay than oil extraction.

The Galapagos faces many issues with pollution from people with tourism, and the ever-

growing desire to live on the islands, this couples with rising sea levels threatens many native

plant and animal life. The garbage left behind in resorts often is blown into the waterways or

oceans, allowing animals to be asphyxiated or distorted by the debris.

 Another reason Ecuador is so valuable is due to it being a biodiversity hotspot as

mentioned before, with so many plant and animal species being in such tightly packed areas.

Areas of the rainforest can be so densely populated, it has more plant species in one hectare than

the entire state of New York does. We have about 300 tree species in eastern North America. In

the western Amazon, we have 300 tree species in a single hectare. (Wade) This high population

density causes for fantastic animal adaptations and plants to be unique to the area, but also cause

them to be very susceptible to habitat destruction. The biodiversity hotspot is a double-edged

sword, loaded with beauty and creatures unlike anything else, but due to their very particular

needs, can be wiped off the planet with one simple mistake.

Many of Ecuadors chief exports include Oil, Bananas, Shrimp, Canned fish, Flowers,

Cacao, and Coffee, and though these are all naturally occurring in the area, the growing need for

them is adversely affecting the biomes of the country. The issue behind the growth and

extraction needs for these products stems from the fact that most of the area where these are

harvested are in the rainforest. Normally this would not be an issue if the extraction was within a

reasonable amount, allowing everything to grow back. This is not the case with chief exports

though, which require areas of diverse rainforest to be cut down in order to host exclusively

bananas, or flowers, or cacao. Posing issues for not only the plant life being lost in order to host

these exports, but it also drastically influences the biodiversity of the area which tows down the

animal life that can life there as well. Like the way Native Americans were once diverse and

prosperous, and the settlers then came and pushed them back slowly into nothingness. The

rainforest will soon follow suit if nothing is changed, with a land once covered in many beautiful

landscapes that brings tourism and life to the country, being torn down for the sake of economic

expansion.
 The last issue of the country stems from the need to expand out of the current cities they

reside in which are very dense in population. In Ecuador, roughly 60% of their total population is

currently residing in the three main cities, and this spell disaster for most sustainability programs.

Eventually the cities will reach holding capacity and the already disadvantaged rainforests will

be plowed and developed for the growing populations.

Works Cited
Wade, Lizzie. http://www.sciencemag.org.ezproxy.stockton.edu/news/2015/10/feature-how-amazon-
became-crucible-life. 28 October 2015. 2017.