The most conserved moors are in Panama

The moors is an emblematic ecosystem: it’s good that it has gained a lot of attention in the last few years and it frequently appears on the front pages as a main part in debates on water and mining. As an Andean society, we take advantage of moors, conserve them, explore them and even live on them. But sometimes we forget that we are not the only ones to have moors. In Central America there are also moors, in the Talamanca Mountain Range between Costa Rica and Panama. They are small, less than twenty thousand acres in total, and less than several haciendas located in the Andean moors.

In January I had the opportunity to visit the Central American moors in Costa Rica. At first glance, an Andean person wouldn’t recognize those moors because of their tall bamboo vegetation, and there is little straw in most places. The Talamanca Range is one of the narrowest mountain areas in the world. Because of this, mountain tops have a heavy influence from the two nearby oceans, causing strong humidity and winds. This gave birth to a bamboo moors, intertwined with wetlands and peatlands. This type of moors is similar to the eastern and per-humid Andean moors, which are les known and visited than typical marshlands. Besides, in Central America, as in many other moors in Ecuador and Peru, there are no frailejon plants, but ferns instead.

Read the full article here (in Spanish)