[4] The core area of the Pacific Equatorial Forest covers two counties, Jama and Pedernales, in the northwest of the province of Manabí in Ecuador.
The cold water and air temperatures associated with the Humboldt Current inhibit rainfall in southern coastal Ecuador and Peru, creating dry to arid conditions, whereas the warm temperaturas associated with the El Nino current create humid conditions with high rainfall in northern Ecuador and coastal Colombia.
This complex climatological effect is multiplied by the Jama-Coaque Coastal Mountain Range, whose sharp changes in altitude so close to the ocean account for wide variations in precipitation in very small expanses of land.
During this time, air and water temperatures, tides, sea levels and wave heights, and relative humidity all rise.
The dry season, which now begins in June or July and lasts sometimes into mid January, is characterized by cooler temperatures and more overcast skies.
[8] The primary cause of deforestation in the region is the conversion of native forest into cattle pasture, a process which is aided by illegal logging and slash-and-burn agriculture.
However, the construction of a new coastal highway through the region threatens to facilitate the deforestation of the last remnants of Pacific Equatorial Forest.
In 2001, the Centro de Investigación de Bosques Tropicales (Tropical Forest Research Center) reported: "Due to the high rate of endemism, the mass elimination of forest habitat in the Coastal region over the last half-century represents one of the greatest species extinction events in history.
Rivers that used to be viable year-round now run dry half of the year, crops fail, and droughts result in high death rates of livestock, an effect which is particularly acute during periods of the La Nina ocean-atmosphere phenomenon.
However, the vast majority of the Pacific Equatorial Forest remains unprotected and continued to be logged and cleared for agriculture and cattle ranching.