Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
As elsewhere in the tropics, the rainforests of Panama are disappearing at an alarming
rate, threatening the country's wildlife and, ultimately, human survival. While 45 per-
cent of the country is still covered in forest, and deforestation rates have slowed sub-
stantially since the millennium, the country is losing around one percent of its species-
rich primary growth a year. A third of the land lies in national parks and reserves, but
many of these are “paper parks” since the perennially underfunded ANAM - the gov-
ernment's environmental department - is short of money and, in some cases, political
will to enforce the regulations.
Deforestation
Drive along the newly tarred road in eastern Panama and you'll frequently pass enormous
trailers carrying vast trunks of mahogany, cedar or purpleheart destined for European and
North American markets. The timber industry inevitably is a major contributor to deforesta-
tion but in recent years has been more stringently controlled even if illegal logging, and more
insidiously, selective thinning continues.
By far the main driver of deforestation is colonization , clearing the land for cattle ranching
and subsistence agriculture. Having already denuded the entire Azuero Peninsula and most of
the Pacific slopes of central and western Panama, colonos , or “colonists”, have been moving
into eastern Panama in recent years along the Darién highway and Caribbean coast. Despite
the richness of tropical forests, the layer of nutritious topsoil is particularly thin so that once
cleared it soon becomes worthless, forcing farmers to move on to fell new areas. Some indi-
genous communities are also contributing to deforestation thanks to population increases and
forced changes in lifestyle. In some cash-strapped communities they are even leasing land to
farmers for cattle grazing or colluding with illegal timber extraction. Panama's coastal man-
grove forests - considered to be the most extensive, healthiest and most diverse in all Central
America - are critically threatened, from agricultural expansion and coastal development on
the mainland and water pollution, overfishing and sedimentation on the islands and marine
areas.
Small-scale initiatives have begun across the country aiming to improve environmental
awareness , ranging from assistance for micro-enterprises such as plant nurseries, production
of organic fertilizers and agroforestry projects to tree-planting and recycling, often backed
by NGOs and international environmental organizations. One such programme is supported
through Fundación Nacional Parque Chagres, the result of a “debt-for-nature” swap whereby
$10 million of debt to the US government is eradicated as long as Panamanian government
banks spend $700,000 annually over fourteen years on green-oriented projects and education.
Of course it's no coincidence that this is taking place in the Chagres river basin, which is vital
 
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