Orán is a department of the province of Salta (Argentina). It has about 124,000 residents and an area of 11,892 km². It is bordered by Santa Victoria, Iruya and San Martin and Bolivia, in the north, Rivadavia to the east, Anta to the south and the province of Juruy to the south.

The seismicity of the Salta area is frequent and of low intensity, with medium to severe earthquakes every 40 years.

The piedmont forests constitute an altitudinal zone with a significant percentage of endemic species, representing approximately 50 % of the total. The biogeographic origin of these forests is closely linked to other seasonal forests in South America, such as the forests of the Brazilian Caatinga and the Guajira Peninsula of Venezuela and Colombia. These connections are so strong that it has been postulated that these forests once existed continuously across South America in the past, during climatic periods with rainfall intensity and distribution different from those of today. In this sense, the forests considered in this project constitute a biogeographic "relict," and this condition increases their conservation value and underscores the need for their long-term preservation.

There are no exhaustive lists of the species diversity of these forests, but preliminary estimates indicate that they are home to at least 278 species of woody plants (trees, shrubs, and lianas). Of the trees alone, 104 species were found, 40 of which (38  %) are exclusive to the area covered by this study. This area represents the so-called "Palo Blanco and Palo Amarillo Forest" and, therefore, constitutes one of the areas with the greatest exclusive species richness in the Yungas of Argentina, making it a priority area for conservation. It is also the altitudinal zone with the highest number of valuable timber species, some of which are vulnerable or close to local extinction, such as the oak (Amburana cearensis), the Salta cedar (Cedrela angustifolia), and the red cinchona (Myroxylon peruiferum).