PANAMA RAINFORESTS AND RIVERS

The Center has mobilized public comments opposing four proposed hydroelectric dam projects that threaten free-flowing rivers, rare tropical species, indigenous cultures, and a biologically diverse World Heritage Park in the remote rainforest of northwestern Panama. Promoted by the Panamanian government and major Columbian and U.S. corporations, the projects would forever alter the free-flowing rivers of the Changuinola basin, open remote jungle for development, and threaten La Amistad Biosphere Reserve, including La Amistad International Park, a World Heritage site. To stop the destruction of Panama’s unique biodiversity hotspot, we organized an international coalition of more than 50 indigenous and environmental groups, which demanded that the Virginia-based AES Corporation withdraw from the hydroelectric projects, and we petitioned the World Heritage Committee to list La Amistad as a World Heritage site “in danger,” due largely to the pending dams and other biodiversity threats. In 2007, the Committee voted to take action on the petition and ascertain the level of threats faced by La Amistad.

PROTECTING RARE CENTRAL AMERICAN BIRDS

The Center has been working to secure Endangered Species Act protection for more than 50 of the world’s rarest bird species including the Utila chachalaca, which formerly occurred in mangrove forests only on Utila Island, Honduras.More than two decades after ornithologists petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect this and other birds, the agency had yet to take action — so we filed a lawsuit in 2006 to force the Service to acknowledge the birds’ peril. Unfortunately, the Utila chachalaca may have gone extinct while awaiting protection. Learn more about our International Birds Initiative.

PROTECTING SEA TURTLES

Critically endangered leatherback sea turtles in the Pacific have declined by more than 90 percent over the past three decades, primarily as a result of industrial longline and gillnet fisheries, marine debris, and loss of nesting beaches due to global-warming-induced sea-level rise. In the past decade, the Center and a coalition of marine protection groups have filed a series of lawsuits that restricted swordfish longline fishing and drift gillnetting in areas off the Pacific coast where fisheries were killing the sea turtle. In 2007, the coalition petitioned for designation of critical habitat for the species.

SAVING BASTIMENTOS ISLAND

Panama ’s Bastimentos Island, one of several islands in the Bocas del Toro Archipelago off the Caribbean coast, shines as an ecological and cultural gem rich with coral reefs, pristine beaches, dense tropical rainforests, and indigenous communities. It’s also home to numerous plant and animal species likely found nowhere else but on individual islands within the archipelago — as well as two distinct color variants of the strawberry poison dart frog, the namesake of the fabled Red Frog Beach. Much of the island and its surrounding marine habitat have been designated as a national marine park, and many other areas are considered buffer zones in which development must be strictly regulated. However, because of a massive, U.S.-fueled luxury-development boom, Bastimentos Island's sensitive marine and terrestrial habitats are under siege due to the planned construction of Red Frog Beach Club, a high-end tourist resort. To save the island’s array of unique species and habitats, the Center is taking part in an international movement to oppose residential tourism there. In 2007, we rallied our members to speak out against the Red Frog Beach Club by appealing to Panama’s environmental agency to decline approval of its construction.