Chocó-Darién moist forests

Chocó-Darién moist forests (NT0115)
Mangroves fringing the Utría National Natural Park
Ecology
Realm	Neotropical
Biome	Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests
Geography
Area	73,556 km2 (28,400 sq mi)
Countries	Colombia, Panama
Coordinates	6°19′12″N 76°50′42″W / 6.32°N 76.845°W / 6.32; -76.845Coordinates: 6°19′12″N 76°50′42″W / 6.32°N 76.845°W / 6.32; -76.845
Climate type	Af: equatorial; fully humid

The Chocó-Darién moist forests (NT0115) is an ecoregion in the west of Colombia and east of Panama. The region has extremely high rainfall, and the forests hold great biodiversity. The northern and southern parts of the ecoregion have been considerably modified for ranching and farming, and there are threats from logging for paper pulp, uncontrolled gold mining, coca growing and industrialisation, but the central part of the ecoregion is relatively intact.

The Chocó-Darién moist forests extend along most of the Pacific coast of Colombia and extend north into Panama along the Caribbean coast. They are bounded to the east by the Andes, which separate them from the Amazon and Orinoco ecoregions. They have an area of 7,355,566 hectares (18,176,000 acres). In Colombia the ecoregion is in the Chocó, Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Nariño departments. In Panama it is in the Darién and Guna Yala provinces.

The northern section merges into Isthmian-Atlantic moist forests to the west in the Isthmus of Panama, and contains patches of Eastern Panamanian montane forests. Along the Caribbean coast there is a stretch of Amazon-Orinoco-Southern Caribbean mangroves. To the east it adjoins the Magdalena-Urabá moist forests near the Caribbean coast, and then adjoins the Northwestern Andean montane forests ecoregion along the Andes to the east. On the Pacific coast there are stretches of South American Pacific mangroves. In the southeast an arm of the Patía Valley dry forests reaches down to the ecoregion. In the extreme south the ecoregion merges into the Western Ecuador moist forests ecoregion.