Mountain Research Initiative Newsletter no. 7, 2012 7ing near-term climate change trends, land-use patterns, biodiversity patterns and gradients, the vulnerability of spe-cies and ecosystems to changes in his-torical climatic conditions, as well as lo-cal perceptions of climate variability and change in two binational transboundary study areas: on the Pacific slope of the northern Andes in the border region be-tween Colombia (Narino department) and Ecuador (Carchi province), and on the Amazonian slope of the central An-des in the border region between Bolivia and Peru, in the Madidi – Apolobamba – Bahuaja-Sonene – Tambopata protect-ed area complex. These regions are re-nowned for their exceptional biodiversity and endemism and have been considered key Andean biodiversity hotspots. Re-sults will then be integrated to pinpoint high-risk areas and ecosystems that are particularly vulnerable to the synergistic effects of long-term climatic changes and land-use change. Our interest is to assist the four Tropical Andean countries (Bo-livia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru) in the implementation of a standard meth-odology for estimating climate change