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Terrestrial ecosystems in Amazonia.
This layer represents the terrestrial ecosystems present throughout the Amazon, their extent and designation.
It is crucial to understand how different areas are interrelated in terms of biodiversity and how conservation efforts can be targeted to the most vulnerable areas.
This layer was prepared in AmazoniaForever360+, 2023 -2024, based on data from the Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (TEOW) project. This initiative was launched in 2001 as an effort led by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The aim was to create a global classification that would reflect the full distribution of biodiversity. This approach resulted in a widely accepted set of reference used for conservation planning, biodiversity research and environmental management around the world. TEOW was neither the first nor the only source to define or describe the terrestrial ecosystems in the Amazon and South America, however it served as an important reference for conceptualizing and structuring them within a global framework. The portion corresponding to northern South America has been extracted from several TEOW datasets, simplified and adapted to generate a polygon file that is presented here. Each ecosystem is identified by a unique name (ECOSYNAM) describing its specific typology, such as "Amazon-Orinoco-South America" or "Beni savanna".
Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (TEOW)
Olson, D. M., Dinerstein, E., Wikramanayake, E. D., Burgess, N. D., Powell, G. V. N., Underwood, E. C., D'Amico, J. A., Itoua, I., Strand, H. E., Morrison, J. C., Loucks, C. J., Allnutt, T. F., Ricketts, T. H., Kura, Y., Lamoreux, J. F., Wettengel, W. W., Hedao, P., Kassem, K. R. 2001. Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: a new map of life on Earth. Bioscience 51(11):933-938.
The original data are from:
https://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/terrestrial-ecoregions-of-the-world