created. Deforestation in the Orinoco Majority of the Orinoco is composed by grasslands and pastures areas with small-scale agriculture, forest with extensive river networks and a small population. A major threat to this region is deforestation, and deforestation is a critical menace to biodiversity. From 1990 to 2005, 507,337 ha that is 3.2% of the Orinoco forest disappeared at an annual rate of 0.83%. Causes of deforestation in this region range from land use for agriculture, illicit crops, and mining to slope elevation. Like the Amazonia, the Orinoco is scarcely populated and has a small-scale agriculture (including illicit cropping), and cattle grazing. Deforestation is highly affected by both legal and illegal cropping, and by mining that negative impacts mountain forest at higher lands of the basin. Over the last 10 years the Orinoco along with the Amazonia has been subjected to greater pressures from bio-fuel companies. Caribbean deforestation The Caribbean forest significantly has been transformed into an area of fragments of dry forest with pastures scarce of vegetation. During the fifteen-year period (1990–2005) 753,893 ha of forest were lost that is 5% of the Caribbean forest at an annual rate of 1.92%. In Colombia, cattle grazing productivity is the highest in this region, this practice plus its use of slash and burn activities influence deforestation. Land tenure and illicit cropping also prompt deforestation in this area. When land becomes scarce highland areas provide opportunity for agriculture expansion and forest removal. Three deforestation hotspots were found in the Caribbean: the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, San Lucas, and Perija, where slopes are wetter and steeper and flat land is occupied by cattle grazing or agricultural operations indicating that wetter and steeper municipalities had higher forest loss. Pacific deforestation The Pacific is regarded as one of the wettest zones in the world holding an annual precipitation of 4,000 mm up to more than 10,000 mm in some areas, the climate ranges from humid to superhumid, the population is sparse, and this region is recognized as one of the world's most biologically and culturally diverse areas composed by various Afro-Colombians, and indigenous peoples. In a fifteen-year period, the Pacific experienced one of the highest deforestation rate loss of 472,863 ha about 6.32% of forest loss at an annual rate of 0.42%. Logging has occurred in the region for decades, but over the last ten years, pressures from bio-fuel companies have intensified. Andean deforestation