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As we drove into the Mashpi-Tayra Reserve, in the Chocó Cloud Forest on the western slopes of the Andes, after a three-hour, equator-crossing ride from Quito, the first thing that struck me was the size of the leaves: taller than my research assistant, my nine-year-old daughter. The air was alive with life: a cacophonous chorus as enveloping as the clouds.
They say that it never stopped raining in Chocó, even through ice ages and droughts. According to the refugia hypothesis, for millions…
