A recent study based on data collected over the last 100 years by explorers, as well as satellite images of the Andes-Amazon basin of Peru and Bolivia, found that many of the area's 800 rare and unique species are unprotected. A multinational team of researchers analyzed records of the endemic species, or species that are restricted to a specific area and do not live anywhere else, finding that a total of the 226 species have no national protection, while about half of the ecological systems have 10 percent or less of their range protected.
Here's a gallery of some of the least protected endemic species found in the Andes-Amazon basin of Peru and Bolivia.
Magnificent Valleys
[img=http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/images/i/4066/i02/2-YungasValley.JPG]
For the study, which was published Jan. 27 in the journal BMC Ecology, researchers used various sources of environmental data, including vegetation images taken by NASA's MODIS satellite sensor, to study the endemic species and ecological systems of the Andes-Amazon basin of Peru and Bolivia.
Peru's Yungas Valley, shown in the above photo, is one of the ecosystems about which the researchers collected geographical information.