Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.Roughly bounded by the Tropic of Capricorn in the south and the end of the Andes range in Colombia and Venezuela in the north, the region follows the tropical portion of the Andes Mountains and several adjoining cordilleras (mountain ranges).The Member Countries of the Andean Community hold the first place in the world in diversity and endemism of vascular plants, birds, amphibians, and total vertebrates (excluding fish); and the sub-region is also the center of origin of important Andean-Amazon phytogenetic resources which supply approximately 35 percent of the world's agricultural food production and industrial production.The Tropical Andes hotspot extends downward to an elevation of 1,000 meters in the west, down to 500 meters in the east, a cutoff between the forests of the Andean slopes and the Amazonian lowlands.Different types of vegetation correspond to gradients in altitude.Tropical wet and moist forests occur between 500 and 1,500 meters above sea level; cloud forests extend from 800 to 3,500 meters above sea level, including the montane cloud forests that cover more than 500,000 km² in Peru and Bolivia and are among the richest and most diverse forests on Earth.At higher altitudes (3,000-4,800 meters), grassland and scrubland systems reach up to the snow line.These ecosystems include the páramo (moorland), a dense alpine vegetation growing on a thick mat of sponge-like, highly absorbent mosses and grasses in the cold, humid reaches of the northern Andes, and the drier puna, characterized by alpine bunchgrass species surrounded by herbs, grasses, sedges, lichens, mosses and ferns in the cold but dry southern Tropical Andes.In addition to these main ecosystems, there are also patches of dry forests, woodlands, cactus stands, thornscrub, and matorral (brush) found in this hotspot.The Tropical Andes is home to an estimated 30,000-35,000 species of vascular plants, accounting for about 10 percent of the entire world's species and far exceeding the diversity of any other hotspot.It is also the world leader in plant endemism, with an estimated 50 percent (and perhaps 60 percent or more) of species found nowhere else on Earth.This means that nearly seven percent of the world's vascular plants are endemic to the 0.8 percent of the earth's land area represented by this hotspot.One of the more unique plant species is an Andean bromelilad that require 100 years to mature.This region also includes the largest variety of amphibians in the world, with 664 distinct species, of which near 450 species are listed as threatened on the 2004 IUCN Red List (www.biodiversityhotspots.org).Many rural and indigenous populations depend on biodiversity for their livelihoods, including fishing, nontimber forest products, and agriculture.The region's immense array of natural resources makes for a unique laboratory for products and processes that could incubate medical solutions for current and future generations (Bovarnick et al., 2010; UNDP, 2010a UNDP, , 2010b)). Use and conservation of biodiversityThe use and exploitation of natural resources and specific biological diversity is one of the cornerstones for development for many countries with high biodiversity.This should be associated with the implementation of diversified markets that favor the quality and added values of the products obtained directly, as well as the services arising from their use.Plants and microorganisms are the most representative groups of biodiversity being used as source of industrial developments.The most important sector where plants are used for producing medicaments and drugs is the pharmaceutical industry.Plant species provide a great variety of products like food, medicines and raw materials.Some plant extracts are used in the manufacture of glue, soaps, cosmetics, dyes, lubricants and polishes among www.intechopen.com