Panama
Panama officially called the Republic of Panama (Spanish: República de Panamá), is a country in Central America.
It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia (in South America) to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south.
The capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half of the country’s 4 million people.
Panama was inhabited by several indigenous tribes prior to settlement by the Spanish in the 16th century. Panama broke away from Spain in 1821 and joined a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela named the Republic of Gran Colombia.
When Gran Colombia dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada remained joined, eventually becoming the Republic of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the Panama Canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914.
In 1977 an agreement was signed for the transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the 20th century, which culminated on December 31, 1999. We are a small charity focused in a tiny little country but incredibly important in the maintenance of the environmental balance of the Americas. If you want to find out more complete our contact form or call and one of our team will be in touch.
We develop partnerships with companies across a wide range of industries, delivering clear business benefits for them, and vital funds for our work protecting biodiversity and helping impoverished communities in Panama.
We know that each company we partner with is unique – with their own vision, brand mission and strategic priorities. That’s why we always tailor-make our approach, to help you get the most out of your partnership with us.
Panama’s diverse ecosystems are reflected in its astonishing terrestrial and marine biodiversity. The biomes found in Panama include tropical lowland humid forests, tropical mountain forests, tropical dry forests, freshwater wetlands, mangroves, coral reefs, and tropical islands. The importance of Panama in the region is even greater when considering its connection with the highly diverse tropical areas in North and South America.
Panama constitutes a vital part of a biological corridor, which connects North and South America and is referred to as the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor allowing a rich exchange of plants and animals. The livelihoods of all communities around Panama’s national parks very much depend upon the use of primary resources. This dependency is even more evident at the local level, particularly among the 8 distinct indigenous and other traditional groups that inhabit these regions.
The protection of Panama’s natural resources is vital for the genetic exchange and movement of animals and plants species thought the American continent. There are so many yet to discover species in Panamanian forest that could possibly help scientists to find new medicines and antibiotics for actual and future human diseases.
Panama is a hotbed of biodiversity; its tropical habitats are home to some of the most diverse and exotic species of plants and animals on Earth. Covering almost half the country’s land surface are immense tracks of rainforests, mangrove wetlands and mountain cloud forests.
In all, Panama houses over 10,444 different types of plant species including 1,200 orchid varieties, 678 fern species and 1,500 varieties of trees. As well as 255 species of mammals and 972 indigenous bird species and 222 different species of amphibians. All this biodiversity in just a very small country about the size of Scotland.
Successful conservation requires collaboration and specialized knowledge. PWCC brings together international institutions and experts to develop help conserve the endangered species and ecosystems, providing a unique opportunity for the joint collaboration between local and international organisations to facilitate international conservation work. PWCC is seeking to address 6 core issues based on Panama’s geographical position and unique biodiversity within the country:
1.Education as a Tool for Environmental Conservation and Sustainable Development
Panama is a developing country with few resources invested directly for conservation and education, in particular funding and time, are very scarce. Today PWCC is deciding where to invest, what conservation tools to employ and how to adapt to this ever-changing world.
Our conservation programmes in local communities are vital to ensure that conservation is both cost-effective and successful.
Local primary and secondary schools are our main target, we work closely with scientists to delivery key and easy to understand information about biodiversity and the importance of protecting the habitats and its dwellers.
2.Amphibian Conservation, making the case for the harlequin toad recovery.
The decline of Atelopus species has been widely reported, and their restricted ranges and habitat make them highly vulnerable. Atelopus varius started to disappear from its original distributional range in 1988 due in part to the spread of an infectious disease. In less that 20 years known populations have disappeared, but an unaffected population has been found situated in the Santa Fe National Park of Panama.
However, with the construction of a new road traversing the park, the increasing interest for uncontrolled development and the unknown impact these may have on this and unknown yet populations it appears that the future maybe hanging in the balance. We need to fully understand how threats may undermine these populations and develop new measures to protect them, working closely with local residents.
3.Sea Turtles Conservation, delivering hope for critically endangered sea turtles in the Tropical Eastern Pacific.
The longest-living marine species to ever ply the world’s oceans. They survived devastating asteroid impacts and outlived the dinosaurs. But the charismatic Hawksbill and the Leatherback sea turtles, the largest turtle in the world, are on the brink of extinction, and scientists question whether these animals will survive into the next decade.
Scientific information about the foraging and nesting sites of the Hawksbill have just began to be discovered, while information about the Eastern Pacific subpopulation of Leatherback species in Panama is non-existent.
Today PWCC aims to continue the monitoring programme of the Hawksbills of Coiba island National Park and identify the first set of data starting with nesting sites in protected and unprotected areas of the Veraguas province for Leatherbacks. These valuable data will provide information to develop a set of urgent protection and management actions.
Our work will support different conservation efforts aimed to the survival of these emblematic marine specie.
4.The last Jaguars of Panama. How can we protect them?
A large proportion of Panamanian forests are now being used for cattle ranching and encounters with jaguars has become increasingly common. Local ranchers blame the jaguars for the lost of their cattle and react by killing these big cats.
Our main objective is to understand the extent to which the Jaguars create a conflict with cattle ranchers and how to avoid it. Radio collaring is the only technique that produces a robust science needed to quantify the actual losses of cattle as well as to estimate how many jaguars are illegally killed.
These approaches will allows to experiment with cattle husbandry such as corralling young and vulnerable animals and to demonstrate to reluctant cattle ranchers, which techniques truly help to reduce their losses.
The objective of this program is to reduce ranchers motivation to kills jaguars and promote their tolerance for these amazing animals. If we succeed jaguars will be safer and local communities and ranchers around Panama’s rainforest will learn a better way of coexistence with this symbol of Mesoamerica biodiversity
5.Wildlife Surveillance. The animals of Cerro Hoya National Park need a voice
Cerro Hoya is the last redoubt of rainforest left in the southernmost area in Azuero Peninsula in central Panama. Despite the intense human pressure this park is mostly pristine and unexplored. However, around the park, exists around 25 villages and nearly 3,000 inhabitants.
The residents of these villages rely strongly on cattle ranching and subsistence agriculture. Some areas of the park reports poacher’s activity and forest clearance due to an inefficient government patrolling and lack of environmental education.
The ranchers have been facing conflicts with wildlife especially jaguars and puma, since them sometimes attack the cattle, causing the rangers to hunt and kill the wild cats. However, the many species considered extinct in the area, have recently been observed by local residents in temporal patches along the buffer zone, e.g. the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari).
PWCC aims to fill the gap of the lack of knowledge about some wild species natural history, and provide science-oriented information to drive the action of government authorities.
Our long-term surveillance programme will focus on critically endangered species like Jaguars, Puma and White-Lipped peccary; we will use this information to feed a local environmental education program to schools and communities; to monitor the status of the wildlife in the area and the effectiveness of the conservation efforts, and to produce education materials to promote local awareness towards wildlife and its conservation.
6.Sustainable Eco-tourism. Forgotten communities will have a new life
Over the years, PWCC members have been working with remote communities inside Cerro Hoya and Darien National Parks in Panama.
We have been trying to support applied research, environmental conservation, traditional and ancestral practices and therefore local economies.
Today our projects aims to bring external funding to encourage and create sustainable business practices including conserving water and energy, supporting community conservation projects, recycling and treating wastes, hiring staff from the local community, paying them just wages and providing training, and sourcing locally-produced products for restaurants and gift shops.
PWCC aims to use its international reputation to attract supporters and organise custom-made rainforest experiences inside these incredible regions attracting new responsible travellers.
Therefore, promoting a sustainable tourism enhancing the well-being of local communities and making positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage.