Plastic bottles,plague and the tree that stitched the desert to the sky

摘要

RBG Kew scientist Oliver Whaley reports on the highs - and the lows - of a project to preserve the critically-threatened huarango forests of Peru, which bring life to the driest desert in the worldAbelt of desert stretches along the entire Pacific coast of Peru. In the north the Tumbesian tropical dry forests are some of the most biodiverse in the world. Utterly unique and critically threatened (95 per cent has been lost already), they span the border into Ecuador. Further north, warm, damp Amazonian air pours west over the Andes bringing rain, but travel south and the Andes form a vast barrier blocking rainfall from the east. Notuntil 4,000 kilometres southwards in Chile - leaving the world s driest, longest desert behind you - does a dusty raincoat need pulling out again.