Dry forests of northwestern Peru (Part 1)

Although it is well known that the dry forests of norwhestern Peru are being constantly depredatet by charcoal burners and overgrazing of goats, sheeps and cows and and threatened by big mining- (see here and here) and agro-industrial projects, they are still impressivly extense, especialy if one has seen the situation in the south of the country (see my post from Ica). They are also known to be based on very fragile ecosystems. But then they seem to be incredibly resistent and skilled for survival. They await the rain, reduced to their minimal expression, barren and naked, suffocated by the heat and dust during the dry season, which is most of the year. In the rainy season, from december through april, it might rain occasionaly. Enough for the forest to come out of it’s lean season. But the highlight is the El Niño phenomenon, with heavy rainfall, floods and run-off streams, known as "huaicos". New forests might rise seemingly out of nothing, in deserted areas, and the existent ones turn into real jungles. For several years the forests and the people and animals that live in them and from them thrive in abundance and sumptuousness.
In the following posts I want to show the pictures I took with my little Pentax Optio of different types of these forests, depending of their geographical conditions.
Further I want to make clear that I'm not a "ingeniera forestal", nor a botanist, nor even an environmetalist. I am not a "professiona" of any kind. I just love photography and happen to go along with a botanist, environmental scientist and manager of a conservation and reforestation project, and, of course, I love trees and plants (and don't understand cruelty against them). Therefore, my use of latin names is clumsy and I appologize for errors.