Orinoquía

The Orinoquía ecosystem, composed of the Llanos Orientales in Colombia and the Llanos del Orinoco in Venezuela, is the second-largest neotropical savanna ecosystem, covering an approximate total area of 445,511 km². This ecosystem shows high heterogeneity in landscapes and vegetation, with mosaics of savanna and forest, influenced by the seasonal migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), savanna grasses predominated, indicating dry climatic conditions. The transition to the Holocene was marked by a slight increase in forest species, suggesting a transition to a wetter climate. Between approximately 10,000 and 7,000 years before present (cal yr BP), savannas were abundant, with some forest species, including the Mauritia palm, being common but rare, indicating a warm and humid climate. After approximately 7,000 cal yr BP, gallery forests began to expand, suggesting a shift to a wetter climate. Mauritia palms increased significantly after 4,000–3,000 cal yr BP, possibly driven by increased average annual rainfall and/or a longer wet season. The beginning of human occupation remains uncertain but has been linked to the time of Mauritia expansion, a period when fires, possibly of anthropogenic origin, were more frequent (Piraquive-Bermúdez & Behling, 2022).

The region harbors high ecological diversity and provides various services to local fauna and human populations. However, it has received little conservation attention compared to adjacent Amazonian or Andean ecosystems, with only 5% of its area protected or monitored as part of conservation units (Piraquive-Bermúdez & Behling, 2022).

The loss of biodiversity in the Orinoquía is due to land-use changes from increased agricultural and livestock areas, poor urban and rural land-use planning leading to infrastructure construction without environmental safeguards, resulting in habitat loss and landscape fragmentation, along with mining that also pollutes waterways and degrades the ecosystem. Additionally, conflicts of interest limit the protection of areas with high ecological value, insufficient infrastructure and regulation of greywater and industrial waste treatment pollute inland waters, and climate change threatens with temperature and precipitation variability along with wetland loss due to severe droughts.