Representatives from Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and Panama spoke to media ahead of the UN Security Council debate on Sudan. Credit: Jennifer Xin-Tsu Lin Levine/IPS

By Jennifer Xin-Tsu Lin Levine
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 2025 (IPS)

The UN Security Council convened today (August 18) to discuss South Sudan and the “interlinked challenges of climate change and conflict” affecting the region.

Security Council members who have joined the Joint Pledges on Climate, Peace and Security – Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and Panama – spoke at a media stakeout ahead of what the representative from Panama called a “compounding crisis” in South Sudan.

The representative for Panama noted the “interlinked challenges of climate change and conflict affecting South Sudan,” referring to climate crises causing flood, drought, minimal resources and famine, further straining peace and fostering inter-communal violence.

He highlighted worsening gender-based violence specifically, saying, “Women and girls are disproportionately and systematically affected by the intersection of climate shocks and insecurity… the breakdown of community support systems heightens the risk of gender-based violence, early marriage, abduction and exploitation, yet women and girls remain key actors in community resilience and peace-building.”

In the Security Council meeting, many other representatives echoed this concern for aid provisions. The Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, warned Security Council members of the risks caused by lack of funding, saying, “funding cuts are leaving millions without life-saving assistance.”

According to the latest UNICEF South Sudan Humanitarian Situation Report, the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 28.5 percent funded over halfway through the year. Between April and July, approximately 7.7 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity, including 83,000 at risk of catastrophic conditions. Approximately 9.3 million people are in dire need of various humanitarian assistance.

The primary conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the country’s official military, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, has fueled this humanitarian crisis.

Since clashes erupted in April 2023, the fighting has displaced millions internally and across borders – contributing to famine, widespread violence and food insecurity.

The conflict heightened further in March of 2025 when First Vice President Riek Machar was arrested on charges of stirring up rebellion. His arrest effectively ended the 2018 peace agreement which had ended the civil war and established a government – since then, political legitimacy across the country has grown steadily weaker. Many see the upcoming December elections as a chance to reinstate democracy and fair, representative governance.

Murithi Mutiga, Program Director for Africa at the International Crisis Group, said, “The immediate priority should be to prevent any escalation of violence.”

He encouraged UN member states with close ties to South Sudan like Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and Tanzania to “call for opposing military actions to create an opportunity for dialogue between the government and opposition groups” and other Security Council members to amplify these discussions without overtaking them.

The representative from Somalia, speaking on behalf of the A3+, a group of African and Caribbean nations, echoed this statement. He said, “an African-led approach, grounded in partnership, inclusivity and respect for South Sudan’s sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity offers the most sustainable path to peace.”

The Pobee further emphasized the necessity of all stakeholders collaborating and acting in good faith to promote democracy in the upcoming elections in December.

She warned, “Failing this, the risk of a relapse into widespread violence will only grow against the background of an already unstable region. It is therefore our shared responsibility to work in close coordination and synergy to help the South Sudanese parties to avoid such an outcome. The people of South Sudan are counting on us.”

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The ICJ heard that children in Palau stand to inherit a country that no longer reflects the stories and values of their ancestors. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
THE HAGUE & NAIROBI, Dec 10 2024 (IPS)

After many decades of colonial rule, Palau was the last country to emerge from the UN Trusteeship. Palau celebrated 30 years of independence in October 2024 “and takes seriously the rights and responsibilities of independence. Independence should mean that Palau is free to build its own future and be responsible for the security, safety, and well-being of its own people,” said Gustav N. Aitaro, the Minister of State of the Republic of Palau at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

“Yet, Palau is learning that with freedom of independence must also come with a basic responsibility towards neighbours. Every independent nation must ensure that the activities they allow within their territory do not cause significant harm to other nations. Man-made climate change is now the biggest threat to the Palauan people’s independence and right to self-determination.”

In 2021, a youth group in Vanuatu collaborated with their Prime Minister to seek an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the obligations of UN member states in respect to climate change and the legal consequences of these actions. Nearly 100 states and 12 organisations have been enjoined in the case and public hearings are currently ongoing at The Hague, the seat of the ICJ, in pursuit of the much-needed advisory opinion. Among those making their submissions today were Palau, Panama and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Realization of Independence At Stake—Palau

Aitaro stressed that in order for Palau to fully realize its independence, “it must ask this Court to recognize that states have the legal responsibility to ensure that they do all they can to prevent emissions from their territory from causing significant harm to other states. In order to understand the threat that climate change poses to Palau, I invite you to walk with me through the lived reality of Palau, a reality deeply marked by the relentless impacts of climate change.”

Koror State is the most populous in Palau. The red areas are flood zones from sea level rise. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

In the 1970s, higher-than-normal tides were rare and only one instance was recorded, but between 2010 and 2019, the number rose to five and there were four incidences in 2021 alone, Aitaro said, showing the court how badly affected Palau is.

Ernestine Rengiil, Palau’s Attorney General, emphasised that while climate change poses tremendously complex practical problems for the world, as a matter of international law, the issue of climate change is straightforward. She said common to the principles of law of all civilized nations is the concept that one’s property may not be used to cause harm to another’s.

That if one uses or allows their property to be used in a manner to cause harm to another, that harm must be stopped and reparations paid in full. In common law systems, this is a law of nuisance.

“In civil law systems, this is a servitude established by law—and in most moral systems, this is simply the golden rule. In international law, this principle is better known as the law of transboundary harm and state responsibility. This principle is foundational to every state’s independence,” she said.

Rengiil invited the court to decline to “create new exceptions to the basic rules of the international order for climate change. The minority argue that because climate change is caused by a diffused set of global emissions sources, it will be too difficult in any future contentious cases to prove causation. But such practical problems exist in all cases and are not sufficient grounds to abandon the basic legal rules altogether.”

ICJ Needs to Reinforce International Obligations—Panama

In what is shaping up to be a David vs. Goliath public hearing, Panama’s size on the map was no barrier to making a compelling case.

“Panama, regardless of its small size and contribution of only 0.03 percent of global emissions, is mindful of the challenges that require that it has become among a handful of states a carbon-negative country. Panama is not turning away from facing the adverse conduct of others as to human-induced global warming,” Fernando Gómez Arbeláez, an expert in international legal affairs, said.

Panama invited the court to consider ongoing advisory proceedings as “a critical opportunity to attend to the inadequacies of the current Conference of the Parties, or COP, of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). By means of an opinion that in itself carries great legal weight and moral authority, the court can offer much-needed legal clarity to reinforce international obligations and inspire a stronger determination to tackle the global climate crisis.”

Human Rights and Due Diligence Work Together—DRC

In her submissions, the Democratic Republic of the Congo said, although in the minority, certain states are keen to invoke the relationship between different sources of international law to require a compartmentalised reading and a selective utilisation of them. Stressing that the different international obligations of states coexist and that compliance with one obligation in no way relieves them of their responsibility with regard to the others.

Speaking on behalf of the DRC, Sandrine Maljean-Dubois, who is a dedicated teacher and researcher in international environmental law, spoke extensively of the obligation of due diligence and human rights. Stressing that these obligations are not in conflict. That the obligations for the UNFCCC framework and the Paris Agreement are reinforced by other international obligations. Emphasising that the international climate regime, specifically the Paris Agreement alone, will not prevent significant harm to the climate system.

“On the one hand, failure to implement all available means to prevent significant harm to the climate system puts the state in breach of general international law. On the other hand, it is clear that each state has to play its part. The obligation of preventing harm is informed and buttressed, in turn, by treaty obligations,” she said.

Maljean-Dubois said the obligation of due diligence requires a maximum level of vigilance. Informed by the climate regime and enlightened by the IPCC reports, “the due diligence obligation requires states to take fair, urgent and ambitious measures to mitigate the effects of climate change and to adapt to them. Far from lessening over time, this obligation has, to the contrary, become more stringent as scientific evidence has mounted.”

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Representatives of a dozen environmental organisations, united in the Roundtable Against Metal Mining in El Salvador, speak out against Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele’s goal to reopen this industry, banned by law since 2017. Credit: Roundtable Against Metal Mining in El Salvador

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Dec 10 2024 (IPS)

Metal mining has a renewed momentum in Central America, encouraged by populist rulers who, in order to soften environmental damage, claim they can develop it in harmony with nature, which is hard to believe

Thus, they seek to win the approval of a majority that seems to follow them blindly, but not environmentalists or other social sectors, activists told IPS.

“The mere popularity of President Bukele is not enough to say that the mine will not contaminate the country,” Rodolfo Calles, an activist with the Association of Salvadoran Community Promoters, told IPS, referring to the interest shown by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in reactivating metal mining, which has been banned for seven years.“The mere popularity of President Bukele is not enough to say that the mine will not contaminate the country”: Rodolfo Calles.

Central America, an isthmus of six nations and 64 million inhabitants, is one of the most environmentally vulnerable regions, where activists and social defenders have been warning for decades about the negative impacts the metal mining industry has had on their ecosystems.

As a result of these struggles, a law banning all forms of metal mining was passed in El Salvador in March 2017, the first measure of its kind in the world and considered a historic milestone.

Costa Rica had done the same in 2010, but only for open-pit mining, and other countries have halted specific projects, such as in Guatemala and Honduras, and Panama last year.

Central America is a region rich in biodiversity and natural resources. It has abundant water and forests as well as mineral resources. With the exception of Belize, the only country without significant mineral deposits, significant quantities of metals such as gold, silver or zinc, as well as nickel, copper and other minerals can be found in all territories.

But several studies indicate that the mining industry’s economic contribution is minimal in the area, and in the case of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, it has not exceeded 1% of their gross domestic product (GDP). GDP per capita in the region is around US$6,000.

Guatemala is the Central American country with the greatest mineral wealth, metallic and non-metallic, while Panama and El Salvador have much lower concentrations of mineral elements of interest, according to a study.

Panama saw its largest protests in three decades, against the largest copper mine in Central America. As a result, in November 2023, a law established an indefinite moratorium on mining. Credit: Luis Mendoza / Mongabay

Going backwards

Now El Salvador and Costa Rica, ruled by leaders labelled as populist, are taking steps backwards.

“Bukele launches the issue because he relies on the credibility he claims to have as president and people’s misinformation,” Calles stressed.

Despite his authoritarian nature, the president continues to enjoy broad popular support, according to all opinion polls.

Meanwhile, Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves announced on 27 November that he had submitted a bill to the unicameral National Assembly to reverse the ban on open-pit mining, setting off alarm bells in a country renowned for its efforts to preserve the environment.

The intention is to finally give the green light to a gold mine that had already won a concession but was cancelled when the 2010 ban came into force, based on the constitutional premise that citizens have the right to live in a healthy environment.

The mine is located in the town of Crucitas, in the province of Alajuela, in the north of the country. It is owned by the Canadian consortium Infinito Gold.

But President Chaves wants to reverse the ban.

“Right now we are just seeing how we are going to counteract what is coming,” Erlinda Quesada, a Costa Rican environmentalist with the National Front of Sectors Affected by Pineapple Production, an organisation that, among other things, seeks to protect water sources from intensive monoculture production, told IPS.

In a telephone conversation from the town of Guácimo, in the province of Limón, in the northwest of the country, Quesada added: “It is no secret to anyone that we have a populist government that… is ingratiating itself with these humble sectors, the poorest in the country, and holding them in its hands” when it wants to approve the proposal.

Meanwhile, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega intensified his relationship with China by granting, also on 27 November, the fifth concession to Xinjiang Xinxin Mining Industry.

The new 1,500-hectare mining project is located between the municipalities of Santo Domingo and La Libertad, in central Nicaragua. In all, the consortium’s operations cover 43,000 hectares.

These concessions granted by Ortega’s dictatorial regime would appear to be, in addition to the economic benefit, a move to tighten links with China and annoy the United States, which is seeking to curb the Asian power on the world geopolitical stage.

In September 2022, the people of Asunción Mita in eastern Guatemala voted against the Cerro Blanco mining project owned by Elevar Resources, a subsidiary of Canada’s Bluestone Resources. The ‘no’ won. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Bukele’s economic hope

Out of the blue, Bukele posted a message on the social network X on 27 November showing his interest in the country’s return to the extractive industry, arousing concern among social sectors that, after a long struggle, had succeeded in getting the Legislative Assembly to ban mining in March 2017.

“We are the only country in the world with a total ban on metallic mining, something that no other country applies. Absurd!” the president wrote.

He added that this wealth can be harnessed responsibly to bring “unprecedented” economic and social development to the Salvadoran people.

That development is what he has promised to deliver in his second five-year presidential term, beginning in June 2024, after winning the elections in February amid sharp criticism that the constitution did not allow him to participate in a second, consecutive election.

Then, on 1 December, in a public act, the president tried to justify his extractivist project stating that the country’s mining potential is enough for an accumulated wealth of three trillion dollars, equivalent to 8,800 % of the current Salvadoran GDP.

There are around 50 million ounces of gold in the subsoil, equivalent to 132 billion dollars at current value. But it’s not just gold and silver, he said.

“According to our initial studies, we have found metals of the fourth industrial revolution, such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, which are used to make batteries for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage,” he claimed.

Rare earth minerals, used for advanced electronics, wind turbines and electric vehicle motors, as well as platinum, palladium and iridium to produce hydrogen and catalytic converters, among others, have also been detected, he added.

Bukele said there will always be environmental impacts in any development project, but they can be minimised. As his New Ideas party controls the Legislative Assembly, it would be very easy for him to revive mining in El Salvador.

An anti-mining banner at a church in El Salvador. Social mobilisation against mining projects has been key in trying to stop the operations of these consortiums and prevent soil and water contamination in the communities. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Cheerful accounts

“The president is making happy accounts of the supposed economic benefits that would be obtained, but he is not accounting for the real damage that would be done to the ecosystems,” said Calles, a Salvadoran who has been fighting against the mines for years.

He added that when the ban on mining in the country was being discussed, Bukele was already involved in politics, and knew there were studies showing that the industry was unfeasable in El Salvador because of its negative impacts on water, soil and people’s health.

“I don’t know where he gets the idea that the impacts will be less. What we know is that mining extraction techniques have not changed significantly, and cyanide, for example, is still being used,” he said. This is a chemical compound that, if misused or unintentionally leached into bodies of water, can be lethal.

Central America’s experience with the extractive industry is negative and long-standing, as in other regions of the world.

At a forum organised in 2009 in San José, Costa Rica, by the Latin American Water Tribunal, the regional experiences of open-pit mining in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Peru were analysed and testimonies were heard about the adverse effects in these countries.

These included testimonies from representatives of the Honduran Association of Non-Governmental Organisations and the Environmental Committee of the Siria Valley, where the San Martín mining project, run by Minerales Entre Mares de Honduras, was operating at the time. It was shut down in 2008.

In 2022, the international organisation Oxfam stated that the mine left behind “a trail of complaints about human health (…), as well as reports of contamination and destruction of flora, fauna and local ecosystems; economic, social and cultural damage to the communities”.

Meanwhile, in late 2023, Panama ordered the closure of the largest copper mine in Central America, operated by Minera Panama, a subsidiary of Canada’s First Quantum Minerals. This came after the courts ruled that the concession contract was unconstitutional.

The closure was the result of massive social protests, due to allegations of serious environmental contamination, and led the government to promote a law establishing moratorium on mining activity in the country for an indefinite period of time.

In Guatemala, social mobilization led to court rulings that stopped the country’s main mining projects.

“The most emblematic projects have been suspended by the Constitutional Court, whose members, although corrupt, accepted that the companies never complied with two fundamental requirements: providing information to the community and holding citizen consultations,” Julio González, of the Madreselva Collective, told IPS from Guatemala City.

González added that these include the nickel mine owned by the Solway Investment Group, located in the municipality of El Estor, and El Escobal, owned by the Canadian company Pan American Silver, near San Rafael Las Flores, both in the east of the country.

The Progreso VII Derivada mine, known as La Puya, owned by Exploraciones Mineras de Guatemala, in the central-south department of Guatemala, as well as Cerro Blanco, owned by Canadian Bluestone Resources, located in the vicinity of Asunción Mita, in the eastern department of Jutiapa, have also been added to the list.

González questioned the authenticity of the environmental impact studies carried out by the mining consortiums, as they are based on a specific, very restricted geographical area.

“The biggest lie are these environmental impact studies, carried out in the so-called areas of influence, which is the place where the mine is located and the three or four surrounding villages, but the water, which is going to be contaminated, goes far beyond this area of influence,” he said.

On El Salvador’s backtracking on the possible reactivation of mining, he added: “What I see is Bukele’s alignment with the hegemonic economy, which is not exercised by the US government but by US corporations”.

A ship passes through the Pedro Miguel lock on its way to the Miraflores system to cross the Panama Canal. The infrastructure faces water shortages due to drought in the country, which limits the pace of maritime cargo transport through the bioceanic route that moves six percent of the world's maritime trade. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
PANAMA CITY, Feb 8 2024 (IPS)

At the bar that Sandra manages in Panama City’s central financial district, the variety offered on the menu has shrunk due to delays in ship traffic through the Panama Canal, one of the world’s major shipping routes.

“We are out of stock of some of our foreign beers, because the shipment didn’t arrive. I hope it will get here one of these days,” the Panamanian bar-keeper told IPS, as she pointed to a half-empty refrigerator in the bar nestled between skyscrapers. "Above and beyond the ship traffic, the canal should provide raw water for the populations of (the provinces) of Panama and Colon. The difference is that now there is more traffic and the problem is that in the dry season the salt level rises and damages the raw water for potabilization." -- Óscar Vallarino

The delays have been repeated since drought took hold in this Central American nation throughout 2023, exacerbated by the effects of the climate crisis and the cyclical El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather phenomenon that warms the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

This mixture of phenomena has repercussions on the forested areas surrounding the canal and the Alhajuela, Gatun and Miraflores artificial reservoirs that supply it and provide water for more than half of the country’s total population of 4.7 million people.

Due to the lack of rain, the level of Gatun Lake, the main source of water for the canal inaugurated in 1914, dropped from its normal height of 26 meters above sea level to less than 24 in recent weeks.

Six percent of the world’s maritime trade, especially container trade, goes through the canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

In addition, the interoceanic waterway has lost volume through evaporation due to warming water temperatures, according to a 2022 study by the Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP), a network of 180 public and private organizations.

Oscar Vallarino, a former official of the state-owned autonomous Panama Canal Authority (ACP), founded in 1978 to manage the company, said the situation stems from including the canal in its current watershed and expanding it since 2016, which doubled its capacity and the volume of ships, in addition to leading to the prohibition of the construction of more dams.

“Above and beyond the ship traffic, the canal must provide raw water for the populations of (the provinces) of Panama and Colon. The difference is that now there is more traffic and the problem is that in the dry season the salt level rises and damages the raw water for potabilization,” he told IPS.

The cruise ship Queen Victoria, owned by the British company Cunard, prepares to lower the first eight meters in the Miraflores locks of the Panama Canal, heading for the Atlantic Ocean. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

From the Bridge of the Americas, which connects Panama City with the western part of its metropolitan area, the ships lined up to enter the canal look like figures in a board game moving slowly over a blue board. The waiting time varies, mostly en route to a U.S. port.

But the slowdown stems from the crucial element of the infrastructure: water, whose scarcity means fewer commercial vessels can cross from one ocean to the other. The reservoirs that feed the canal have a capacity of 1,857 hectoliters and currently hold only 900.

At the same time, the demand for different activities is increasing, leading to greater competition for consumption and conflicts that will intensify throughout this century.

Law 93 of 1999, modified by Law 44 of 2006, establishes the limits of the canal’s watershed, which covers 343,521 hectares and is one of 52 in the country.

The rainy season in this tropical country runs from May to November, but the last quarter of last year recorded lower rainfall, and the drought will worsen in the first half of 2024.

The population of the provinces of Panama and Colon also depends on water from the canal. But the problem is aggravated by waste, the leakage of at least 40 percent of the water due to broken pipes and the lack of efficient infrastructure.

This is despite the fact that this nation ranks fifth in the world in annual rainfall, has six times the world average of fresh water per person, in addition to 500 rivers, in an area of only 75,517 square kilometers.

But on the other hand, it has the highest individual consumption in Latin America, with 507 liters per inhabitant. Panama has an availability of about 115,000 cubic meters per inhabitant/year, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The consequences of the climate crisis and ENSO cloud the outlook for the water supply, since they mean that both excess and scarcity of water will create trouble for this Central American country. El Niño has reappeared in its strong phase, as meteorologists define the worst of its three modalities.

The ACP estimates that the basin captures almost 4.4 billion cubic meters (m3) annually, of which the canal consumes 70 percent for navigation and 15 percent for drinking water.

A view of Panama City, where population growth is driving up water demand. Drinking water for the city and the neighboring province of Colon comes from the Panama Canal and faces chronic management problems and infrastructure failures, now compounded by drought. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Victim of nature

In response to the crisis, the ACP adjusted the maximum draft, the daily traffic capacity and the reuse of diverted water.

As a result, it reduced the number of vessels crossing the 82-kilometer route to 24 per day from an average of between 38 and 40, which could drop to 18 this February, when traffic is expected to decline by one-third from its usual level.

In addition, it charges 10,000 dollars for water rights and auctions quotas for diverting water. Each passage requires 250 million liters of water per vessel, which is then returned to the system.

The canal already suffered an acute water crisis in 2016, but it has been aggravated now by a strong ENSO.

William Hugues, a member of the non-governmental National Front for the Defense of Social and Economic Rights, said the crisis was foreseeable and exposed the underlying aim of prioritizing the canal over the water supply to the local population.

“We issued a warning in 2006, when the expansion was being discussed, that larger locks would cause more salt water to enter Gatun. This demand would threaten the supply of drinking water. We have to accept that the canal has physical limits and we cannot respond to the dynamics of the international economy,” the economist, whose group includes social organizations, trade unions and other groups, told IPS.

Hugues, author of a book on the expansion of the canal traffic, pointed out that there is always a line of ships waiting to cross during the dry season and that the measures applied are the same as before the expansion.

Due to cargo demand, the expansion, undertaken in 2007 and completed in 2016, added two locks to accommodate the larger, heavier Neopanamax cargo ships, which need more water to transport up to 120,000 tons, especially gas cargo. But the expansion has had repercussions on the demand for water.

The use of the canal brings more than four billion dollars into the Panamanian coffers annually, approximately six percent of GDP. The drop in traffic could mean a financial loss of more than 200 million dollars a year and, therefore, will have an impact on the already stressed finances of this Central American nation.

Although it had promised to do so, the ACP did not respond to an IPS query about forecasts for canal activity in 2024.

The crisis has forced ships to take longer and more expensive routes, such as around Cape Horn, to the south of Chile, or to move cargo overland from coast to coast in Panama, before reloading it onto ships.

Drought has caused lines of ships waiting to cross the Panama Canal, where traffic could shrink even more in the face of the increasing scarcity of rain. Infrastructure managers are already limiting daily ship crossings to one-third of the usual number. CREDIT: ACP

Palliative measures

To face the recurring crises, the ACP is studying the construction of a dam and reservoir on the Indio River, west of Gatun, and the use of the Bayano dam, which would entail different costs.

The dam costs 800 million dollars and involves the flooding and displacement of some 1,900 people in an area of 400,000 hectares, while the use of the Ascanio Villalaz hydroelectric dam, owned by the Panamanian state and the private U.S. company AES Global Power, costs three times as much.

But the effects of the climate crisis may worsen, as several recent analyses suggest.

Between 1971 and 2020, Panama experienced significant drops in precipitation, although rainfall trends varied between regions.

Thus, the eastern and central Pacific provinces were significantly drier, especially during the summertime, while the western and central Caribbean provinces were wetter, particularly during the fall, according to the Panama climate risk study published by the World Bank earlier this year.

By 2050, precipitation patterns are expected to increase, when the Pacific territories should experience a jump in rainfall, mostly in summer and autumn, and the Caribbean/Atlantic should see no net change.

The study warns that the frequency of intense floods and droughts related to ENSO will become more common and are especially critical to monitor in the canal basin and the Dry Arc, an area in the west of the country characterized by scarce rainfall.

Meanwhile, the study by the Dutch organizations warns that the measures adopted are short-term and will only limit the canal’s customers in the long term, which will affect the national economy and global pollution.

In addition, several swaths of the country, including the capital and Gatun, are expected to be flooded by 2050.

Panama has an Action Plan 2022-2026 for the integrated management of water resources, composed of 35 actions, but its implementation is proceeding slowly.

The plan seeks to contribute to water security through the prioritization of concrete actions based on national priorities, climate change scenarios, the needs of the different sectors and the institutional and financial capacity for their implementation.

The ACP itself recognizes the need for long-term investments to meet the challenges.

The country has 56 water treatment plants, seven of which are located in the canal. The expansion of several facilities and the construction of two would add some 851 million liters to the flow.

According to Vallarino, a new reservoir and the use of the Bayano dam would eventually be needed.

“We have to ask ourselves if it is feasible. Studies projecting the future should be done, to assess the options. The population is a priority. If it is well managed, we may have some setbacks, but there will be enough water for the public,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hugues said that the canal’s mercantile development rate is unsustainable.

“With the expansion of the canal, shipowners will continue to expand ships, they’ll keep growing and growing. That means we would have to make the basin the whole canal. If they follow the thesis that the canal must continue to be expanded, there will never be enough water to meet demand,” he argued.

Under the circumstances, the canal must adapt, because if it does not, drinkable water will choke in the pipes and businesses such as Sandra’s will continue to have half-empty refrigerators.

The United Arab Emirates foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the vice president and foreign minister of Panama, Isabel de Saint Malo, smile as they sign an agreement for the creation of a Joint Cooperation Committee, at the end of their meeting in the Panamanian capital on Thursday Feb. 11. Credit: Guillermo Machado/IPS

By Iralís Fragiel
PANAMA CITY, Feb 11 2016 (IPS)

The visit by the United Arab Emirates foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to Panama ended Thursday Feb. 11 with the creation of a novel Joint Cooperation Committee on trade and investment.

The committee will serve as “the legal base for launching joint investment projects, including the participation of Emirati companies in the public tenders of this government’s five-year investment plan, especially in the areas of energy and shipping cooperation,” said the vice president and foreign minister of Panama, Isabel de Saint Malo.

Al Nahyan said the UAE is interested in getting involved in areas of common interest, such as banking, logistics, energy, airports and infrastructure.

In a joint press conference, the Emirati minister added that his country is not only interested in studying initiatives to carry out in Panama, but in pushing ahead with projects that would reach out to other markets from this Central American country.

As stated during the meeting, the new committee “will promote and coordinate programmes on the political, economic, trade, cultural, judicial, security, social, environment, tourism, technology and humanitarian aid fronts and in other areas of interest” to the two countries.

On Thursday Feb. 11, the Emirati minister visited Panama as part of a Latin America tour that took him to Argentina and Colombia and ends Friday Feb. 12 in Costa Rica.

Prior to the signing of the accord creating the committee, the two ministers held a private meeting in Panama’s foreign ministry, before presiding over a meeting with their delegations.

The UAE’s decision to open an embassy in Panama in 2017 was confirmed in the meetings, while this country will upgrade its consulate in the Gulf nation to embassy.

Al Nahyan’s visit was preceded, in November 2014, by a trip by Saint Malolto the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, where she was received by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and commander of the UAE armed forces, and where ties between the two countries were strengthened.

That same year, negotiations began on three bilateral agreements: the elimination of the visa requirement, investment protection and aviation.

In this last area, an agreement was reached to create a direct flight between the Panamanian capital and the Emirati city of Dubai.

The Emirates airline route will begin to operate on Mar. 31 and is the longest in the world – nearly 18 hours, the company reported. Panama will be the first Central American country with a flight to Dubai, where the Emirates is the largest airline hub in the Middle East, with connections to Africa, Asia and Europe.

According to a statement by Panama’s foreign ministry, the air link between the two countries is important because “it opens the doors to innumerable economic, trade and cultural opportunities…and lays the foundation for the possible establishment of the headquarters of multinational companies.”

Win-win alliance

Vice President Saint Malo said there are important similarities between Panama and the UAE, especially in logistics and the shipping business, in foreign direct investment, and as countries that promote peace and stability.

“With the opening of the two embassies, not only will these projects quickly take shape, but it makes us gateways to Latin America and the Middle East, respectively,” she said.

Lawyer and international consultant Rodrigo Noriega also welcomed the boosting of relations between this Central American country and the rich Gulf nation, although he noted that the benefits will not be seen in the short term.

“This visit is very productive and strengthens Panama’s reputation as an open country that is not xenophobic and is not anti-Muslim,” he told IPS.

The expert described it as a “win-win” relationship, but one that will begin to give fruit in five, 10 or 20 years.

“We are taking the first steps towards interregional diplomacy with a bloc of countries with which we have not normally had ties,” he said.

In his view, the fact that the UAE is looking to Panama “indicates that there are questions of common interest, such as the expansion of the canal and of the Tocumen international airport, the logistics hub, the dollarised economy and the Colon free zone.”

“They see possibilities for investment and see us as a platform for their products and services, as a strategic ally in the region,” Noriega said.

Saint Malo took advantage of the meeting to present to her guest the Regional Logistics Centre for Humanitarian Assistance in Panama, an initiative “that benefits all of Latin America and the Caribbean and is aimed at addressing the effects of climate change.”

As her office stated, the logistics centre brings together the emergency operations of different agencies in one single location, at the Panama Pacific International Airport, some 20 minutes from the capital.

Al Nahyan, meanwhile, stressed that the UAE’s hub offers aid to Southeast Asia and Africa, among other regions, and that its experience could support Panama’s hub. “Our experts will be exchanging ideas and will provide support for the third phase of this Panamanian initiative,” he said.

Noriega said Panama could take into account successful aspects of the UAE, such as its great experience as a logistics, financial and energy hub, as well as its heavy spending on education.

“They have sent their people to study at the best universities in the world. Universities like Massachusetts, Harvard and Cambridge have campuses in the Emirates, because they want to stop being a country that only produces raw materials, like oil, to become a producer of knowledge,” the analyst said.

Noriega said Panama must stop thinking only as an “exporter of water through the canal” and start thinking as “a country that produces knowledge,” a lesson in which it has a lot to learn from the UAE, which the world has stopped seeing as a mere oil exporter.

New energy mix

Another important issue discussed in the bilateral dialogue was energy.

In response to a question from IPS in the press conference, the vice president said that with respect to energy, the delegations discussed the shared aim of diversifying the energy mix and boosting the production of clean energy, to explore areas of cooperation in the future.

Al Nahyan, for his part, said there are international initiatives in which Panama and the UAE could participate, that move away from the traditional development of oil and gas.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Nelson Pérez monitors the water temperature in the trays where lettuce grows in a controlled-environment farm in the town of Rio Hato, Panama. Vertical farms are beginning to catch on around the world, as a technique that boosts food security, in the face of the impacts of climate change. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
RÍO HATO, Panama, Dec 5 2015 (IPS)

Infrared thermometer in hand, Nelson Pérez checks the water temperature in the trays where dozens of small lettuce plants are growing in a nutrient-rich liquid in this vertical farm in Panama.

The water, which contains calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and vitamins, must be kept at a steady 21 degrees Celsius, to obtain the best growth.

Pérez is the watchful carekeeper of the lettuce growing in trays in the controlled environment created by the Urban Farms company in the town of Río Hato, population 15,700, in the province of Coclé, some 125 km north of Panama City.

The vertical farm, the only one of its kind in Latin America, is an example of controlled-environment agriculture, a technology-based approach toward food production which often uses hydroponic methods. This kind of farming helps combat the effects of climate change on agriculture.

“Climate change has affected agricultural production,” said David Proenza, founder of Urban Farms. “So we saw a need to see what changes we could bring about, using technology.”

In 2010, Proenza heard about experiments with vertical farming in Asia and travelled to Japan, where he contacted researchers and members of the business community.

He brought the technique back to Panama, and he and his new partners decided to send an agronomist to be trained in Japan.

Until then, he was a conventional producer of watermelon and other crops.

“The farmer controls everything, from the seeds to the harvest,” he explained to IPS. “The idea is to produce and consume locally.”

Proenza set up a partnership with two other people, and receives guidance from an outside group. He employs two full-time and two temporary workers.

On his four-hectare property, Proenza dedicated a 12 by 17-square-metre space to setting up 60 hydroponic trays with a capacity for growing 30 to 36 plants each.

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil, using mineral nutrient solutions in water.

After three days, the seeds are transplanted from the germination tray to the growing trays. Three weeks later the lettuce is picked, processed and packed for distribution to supermarkets.

The vertical farm produces some 2,000 heads of five different kinds of lettuce a month, without pesticides, preservatives or large extensions of land.

A computer programme controlled from a smartphone regulates the temperature of the room and the water, as well as the lighting and irrigation.

The low voltage grow lights, which stay on for 18 hours a day and cost 120 dollars each, produce red, yellow or blue light, each of which has a particular effect. The trays hold between 25 and 100 litres of water, depending on the size.

Controlled-environment agriculture encompasses vertical farms, urban gardens, and hydroponics.

Panama is highly vulnerable to climate change, exposed to intense storms, flooding, landslides and drought. The climate of this tropical Central American nation of four million people was previously divided into wet and dry seasons, but now the difference is less marked.

Río Hato is at one end of the Arco Seco or “dry arch”, an important area of food production for both export and domestic consumption.

Panama’s main crops are corn, rice, beans, melons, watermelons, oranges, bananas and coffee. Stockbreeding is also a key driver of the economy.

Agriculture accounts for around four percent of the country’s GDP.

Official statistics show that grain harvests have shrunk in 2014 and 2015, with the exception of corn, due to factors that experts blame on climate change.

The 2010 report “Panama: Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture”, produced by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and other international bodies, stated that climate change would cause this country agricultural losses amounting to between four and seven percent of GDP by 2050 and between eight and nine percent by 2100.

Gustavo Ramírez, a professor with the Cuautitlán Higher Studies Faculty at the Autonomous National University of Mexico, said vertical farming is viable in Latin America, but policies to stimulate it are lacking.

“With this system you can make better use of space,” he told IPS. “In urban areas, there are abandoned buildings that could be put to use, and there is much more space in rural areas.”

In Río Hato, Proenza, who has invested over 70,000 dollars in the farm, has tried growing strawberries, cucumbers, chili peppers, melons and watermelons, with positive results.

Vertical farming is in vogue in the United States, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. An Association for Vertical Farming has been created, and groups companies, universities and individuals. It has offices in Canada, China, India and several European countries.

This farming method offers an alternative in cities around the world, and in impoverished rural areas where people still go hungry.

In cities like Buenos Aires, Mexico City or Santiago, rooftop gardens where people grow their own fresh produce are now common.

To foment the sharing of knowledge, Proenza created the Foundation for the Development of Controlled Environment Agriculture, which organised the International Congress on Controlled Environment Agriculture here in May, which drew more than 350 researchers, academics and farmers from around the world. The next edition is slated for 2017.

“Farmers earn three times more than in the countryside,” said Proenza. “Vertical farms are 30 percent less expensive than traditional farming, and 15 percent cheaper than greenhouses. The risk is minimal,” added the entrepreneur, whose initiative won the second National Prize for Business Innovation, granted by the National Secretariat on Science and Technology, in 2014.

His plan is to expand the vertical farm by 400 square metres, adding varieties of parsley, basil, coriander, arugula and strawberries.

Ramírez recommended that governments refocus their agricultural policies and rethink priorities. “Governments must show an interest, and should focus policies on exploring this technique. We need better planning for production, distribution and logistics,” he said.

The local and regional markets that would be developed through vertical farming would have “an enormous impact,” he said, but “seed capital and technological packages would be needed, based on our own model.”

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Indigenous people who would be directly affected by the impact of a hydroelectric project in Panama were not consulted despite national and international human rights obligations to obtain their free, prior and informed consent, according to a just-released report.

Acting on behalf of communities in Panama’s Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous territory, the Movimiento 10 de Abril (M-10) had filed a complaint with the Independent Complaints Mechanism (ICM) of the Dutch FMO and German DEG development banks alleging that the Barro Blanco dam project which the banks were financing would lead to the flooding of the communities’ homes, schools, and religious, archaeological and cultural sites.

The two banks were accused of failing to adequately assess the risks to indigenous rights and the environment before approving a 50 million dollar loan to GENISA, the project’s developer.

The independent panel’s report, released May 29, found that the “lenders should have sought greater clarity on whether there was consent to the project from the appropriate indigenous authorities prior to project approval,” adding that “the lenders have not taken the resistance of the affected communities seriously enough.”

“We did not give our consent to this project before it was approved, and it does not have our consent today,” said Manolo Miranda, a representative of the M-10.  “We demand that the government, GENISA and the banks respect our rights and stop this project.”

According to the ICM’s report, “significant issues related to social and environmental impact and, in particular, issues related to the rights of indigenous peoples were not completely assessed.”

The environmental and social action plan (ESAP) accompanying the project “contains no provision on land acquisition and resettlement and nothing on biodiversity and natural resources management. Neither does it contain any reference to issues related to cultural heritage.”

Ana María Mondragón, a lawyer at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), said: “This failure constitutes a violation of international standards regarding the obligation to elaborate adequate and comprehensive environmental and social impact assessments before implementing any development project, in order to guarantee the right to free, prior and informed consent, information and effective participation of the potentially affected community.”

In February this year, the Panamanian government provisionally suspended construction of the Barro Blanco dam and subsequently convened a dialogue table with the Ngöbe-Buglé, with the facilitation of the United Nations, to discuss the future of the project.

The Barro Blanco project was registered under the Clean Development Mechanism, a system under the Kyoto Protocol that allows the crediting of emission reductions from greenhouse gas abatement projects in developing countries.

“As climate finance flows are expected to flow through various channels in the future, the lessons of Barro Blanco must be taken very seriously,” said Pierre-Jean Brasier, network coordinator at Carbon Market Watch. “To prevent that future climate mitigation projects have negative impacts, a strong institutional safeguard system that respects all human rights is required.”

The ICM will monitor the banks’ implementation of corrective actions and recommendations, while M-10 said that it expects FMO and DEG to withdrawal their investment from the project and ask that the Dutch and German governments show a public commitment to ensuring the rights of the affected Ngöbe-Buglé.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Group photo at the Seventh Summit of the Americas, taken Apr. 11 in Panama City, the second day of the two-day gathering, which for the first time brought together all 35 countries in the hemisphere. Credit: Seventh Summit of the Americas

By Ivet González
PANAMA CITY, Apr 13 2015 (IPS)

Latin America presented its own recipes for development in the new era of relations with the United States in the Seventh Summit of the Americas, where Cuba took part for the first time and the U.S. said it would close the chapter of “medd[ling] with impunity” in its neighbours to the south.

“We must understand that the Americas to the north and to the south of the Rio Grande are different. And we must converse as blocs,” Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said Saturday Apr. 11 on the closing day of the summit, where the leaders of all 35 countries of the Western Hemisphere met for the first time.

With references to history, anti-imperialistic declarations, proposals for solutions and suggested development goals, the leaders who gathered in Panama City expressed a diversity of political positions and priorities, under the summit’s slogan: “Prosperity with Equity: The Challenge of Cooperation in the Americas”.

The two-day meeting was historic due to the presence of Cuba, suspended from the Organisation of American States (OAS) between 1962 and 2009. “It was time for me to speak here in the name of Cuba,” said President Raúl Castro in his speech during the summit’s plenary session.

Cuba’s participation was preceded by another historic development: the restoration of diplomatic ties announced Dec. 17 by Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama.

Without exception, the heads of state and government who addressed the plenary in the Atlapa Convention Centre celebrated the socialist island nation’s participation in the Americas-wide meeting, which many of them saw as representing the end of the Cold War and burying a period of ideological clashes between the left and right.

At the summit, Obama and Castro put 56 years of bitter conflict further behind them with a handshake and small talk during the opening ceremonies, points in common in their speeches, exchanges of praise and a bilateral meeting where they confirmed their earlier decision to normalise relations without renouncing their differences.

The region “no longer permits unilateral, isolationist policies,” Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said in her address. “Today we have gathered together in a different context.”

Cuba’s full insertion and the advanced talks held since 2012 between the Colombian government and leftwing guerrillas to end the last armed conflict in the region, which has dragged on for over half a century, means Latin America can soon declare itself a region of peace, as sought by the 33 countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

In Rousseff’s view, “the consolidation of democracy and new political paradigms in each one of our countries led to a shift, and public polices now put a priority on sustainable development with social justice.”

Alcibíades Vásquez, Panama’s minister of social development, while being interviewed, surrounded by indigenous leaders who on Apr. 11 delivered to him the declaration “Defending our nations” in the name of 300 native representatives who participated in one of the alternative forums held parallel to the Seventh Summit of the Americas. Credit: Ivet González/IPS

The leader of Latin America’s powerhouse, who has a history of trade unionism and activism against Brazil’s 1964-1985 dictatorship, said “Latin America today has less poverty, hunger, illiteracy and infant and maternal mortality than in previous decades,” even though it remains the most unequal region in the world.

Rousseff called for sustained economic growth, unified development targets, the reduction of vulnerabilities in security, education, migration, climate change, guaranteed rights, cooperation, decent work and disaster prevention, as southeast Brazil is suffering the worst drought in 80 years.

After fielding criticism from Correa regarding human rights and respect for sovereignty, Obama said “The United States will not be imprisoned by the past — we’re looking to the future.”

He said he had fulfilled his earlier pledge “to build a new era of cooperation between our countries, as equal partners, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
“We are more deeply engaged across the region than we have been in decades,” he said. He added that “We still have work to do to harmonise regulations; encourage good governance and transparency that attracts investment; invest in infrastructure; address some of the challenges that we have with respect to energy.”

Castro, who was applauded at the start and end of the summit, discussed at length the history of relations between Cuba and the United States. He thanked Obama for trying to end the economic embargo in place against his country since 1962, which “affects the interests of all states” because of its extraterritorial reach.

He urged the hemisphere to strengthen cooperation in fighting climate change and improving education and healthcare, and cited the joint efforts by Latin America and North America in combating the ebola epidemic in West Africa, which has already claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people.

He said that currently 65,000 Cubans are working in 89 countries, as part of the country’s cooperation in the areas of education and health.

And he added that the hemisphere could do a great deal, because Cuba, “with very limited resources,” has helped trained 68,000 professionals and technical workers from 157 countries.

Argentine President Cristina Fernández invited more investment in the countries of Latin America to curb migration to the United States or Canada.

Meanwhile, Peru’s leader, Ollanta Humala, reiterated the need for the region to diversify production, which is based on commodities, and mentioned technology transfer.

The main point of friction at the summit was the Mar. 9 executive order signed by Obama, in which he called Venezuela a threat to U.S. national security. The prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, said 33 of the 35 countries meeting in Panama City had called for the repeal of the decree.

Although there was no official confirmation, the issue was reportedly the main cause for the fact that for the third time since these summits began, in 1994, the highest-level inter-American meeting ended without a final declaration, which was to be titled “Mandates for Action”.

Alternative or parallel forums

But the participants in the Fifth Summit of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala (the Americas) did agree on a final statement, “Defending our nations”, which some 300 native leaders delivered to the convention centre where the presidential summit was taking place, decked out in traditional dress complete with feathers and other ceremonial adornments.

“If all voices are not represented, prosperity with equity is impossible,” Hokabeq Solano, a leader of the Kuna people of Panama, told IPS.

“There was very little representation of our communities in the summit and the parallel forums,” another representative of the hemisphere’s 55 million indigenous people complained.

The indigenous gathering was independent of the Fifth People’s Summit, where more than 3,000 representatives of social movements participated. Since 2005, this meeting has been the alternative conference to the official summits.

In their declaration, the indigenous leaders demanded constitutional reforms that include native peoples, protection of sacred sites, and a roadmap for the unification of indigenous peoples. They also rejected development projects that entail forced displacement of communities.

Some 800 participants in the Forum of Civil Society and Social Actors, another parallel meeting, also delivered to the president a document with proposals on health, education, security, energy, environment, citizen participation and democratic governance.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Workers on strike at the Sixaola plantation in Costa Rica’s Caribbean region rest after sharing a pot of beans, while they wait for news from the leaders of their trade union about the conflict with the transnational corporation Fresh Del Monte. Credit: Fabián Hernández Mena/IPS

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
SAN JOSE, Mar 18 2015 (IPS)

A strike that has brought activity to a halt since January on three major banana plantations on Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coast, along the border with Panama, has highlighted the abuses in a sector in the hands of transnational corporations and has forced the governments of both countries to intervene.

More than 300 labourers, almost all of them indigenous Panamanians working on plantations for a branch of the U.S. corporation Fresh Del Monte, have been on strike since Jan. 16 to protest harassment of trade unionists, changes in schedules and working conditions, delayed payment of wages and dismissals considered illegal.

“The company laid us off on Dec. 31 and when it rehired us on Jan. 3 it said we were new workers and that any modification of the work applied to us. But according to legal precedent, to be considered a new worker at least a month has to go by,” Federico Abrego, one of the striking workers from Panama, told Tierramérica by phone from the area.

Abrego and most of the more than 300 workers on strike on the Sixaola plantations 1, 2 and 3 belong to the Ngöbe and Bugle indigenous groups, who live in a self-governed indigenous county in Panama across the border from Costa Rica, where many go to find work.

Between 70 and 90 percent of Panama’s 417,000 indigenous people live in poverty, according to a 2014 United Nations report.

Observers say the latest conflict between workers and Fresh Del Monte in the Caribbean municipality of Talamanca, 250 km southeast of San José, is the result of decades of accumulation of land on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, mainly by large foreign banana producers, but in recent years by pineapple growers as well.

Talamanca is in the second-to-last place among the country’s 81 municipalities in the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Index. Most of Talamanca’s population is indigenous, and banana and plantain plantations cover 37 percent of the territory.

“The plantations that are on strike belong to Corbana (Corporación Bananera Nacional) and are leased to Fresh Del Monte,” lawmaker Gerardo Vargas, who represents the Caribbean coastal province of Limón, told Tierramérica. “Two years ago there was a big strike over the subhuman conditions, poor wages and immigration problems and a union was founded.”

“In December the contract with Corbana expired, and when they renewed it, the company did something that infringed the rules: they set up a new union, dismissed all of the workers, and only hired back those who were in the new union. The new conflict broke out as a result,” said Vargas, of the left-wing Broad Front coalition.

Corbana was created by the government and the owners of banana plantations to bolster production and trade. In the past it also produced bananas on land that it now leases to companies that basically use the property as their own.

“The concentration of land in Limón is getting dangerous,” warned the legislator from the banana-producing province. “Today hundreds and hundreds of families have to sell their land to become hired labour.”

Abrego is a classic example of these plantation workers. The 53-year-old Gnöbe Indian has been working on banana plantations in Costa Rica since 1993. He now lives with his wife and eight children, half of whom are still of school age, in a house that belongs to the Banana Development Corporation (Bandeco), a branch of Fresh Del Monte.

“My fellow strikers ask me about the food and tell me the same thing my family tells me at home: that they don’t have anything to eat while we’re waiting to be rehired,” said Abrego, the leader of the trade union at the Sixaola 3 plantation.

A burnt vehicle that workers on strike at a Sixaola banana plantation in Costa Rica’s Caribbean coastal region say was set on fire as part of the violent actions against them carried out in reprisal by banana-growing companies. Credit: Fabián Hernández Mena/IPS

“I’m trying to get by without an income, with what I can scrounge up. But there are guys with small children who are having a harder time,” he said with a heavy heart, before explaining that the striking workers prepared communal meals to survive.

An estimated 95 percent of the strikers are indigenous people from Panama. “We’re on this side (of the border) for work,” said Abrego, a legal resident in Costa Rica. “We didn’t come here to steal or to take the bread out of anyone’s mouth. It’s rare to see a Costa Rican working on a banana plantation.”

The strike escalated when banana workers from Panama blocked traffic for a number of hours on the bridge over the Sixaola river, which connects Costa Rica and Panama, on Feb. 20-21.

The roadblock and the fact that the strike is being held by Panamanians on a Costa Rican plantation forced both governments to establish a negotiating table after an agreement reached on Feb. 27, which is to deliver its recommendations in a month.

Taking part in the talks are representatives of Bandeco, the local branch of the Sitepp (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Empresa Pública y Privada) trade union, Costa Rica’s Ministry of Labour and Social Security, and Panama’s Ministry of Labour.

Besides the creation of the binational commission and its report, the agreement included “the company’s promise to immediately rehire 64 workers and to not evict the dismissed workers from their homes,” Costa Rica’s Deputy Minister of Labour Harold Villegas told Tierramérica.

The plantations in Costa Rica’s Caribbean coastal region are the scenario of frequent conflicts between workers and the big banana companies, and the current strike on the Sixaola plantations is just one example. In 2013, Sitepp held a strike to protest poor working conditions and the complaints are piling up in the Ministry of Labour.

In May 2014, an inspection by the ministry revealed a number of violations of the country’s labour laws and ordered the companies to redress them.

For example, according to the report by the national inspection office, “on occasion, company officials use different forms of intimidation against the workers, either through verbal abuse or shouting or practices of labour harassment.”

“After these denunciations were made, they set up a union, tailored to the needs of the company,” the president of Sitepp, Luis Serrano, told Tierramérica. “Through that union they were trying to take over the negotiation of the collective bargaining agreement that expired in December. They launched a campaign against us and started to give benefits to the union in alliance with the company, which they created.”

The union leaders complain that despite the binational agreement, they have not yet received food support from the institutions, although the 64 workers covered by the accord were rehired.

A large proportion of the banana industry is in the hands of transnational corporations. Besides Fresh Del Monte, there are branches of other U.S. firms like Chiquita Brands, which controls 24 percent of the country’s banana exports, or the Dole Food Company.

The banana industry carries a heavy weight in the country, especially the Caribbean coastal region. According to statistics from Corbana, it employs 6.2 percent of Costa Rica’s workforce and 77 percent of all workers in the Caribbean region.

The industry represents seven percent of the country’s exports, and last year it brought in 900 million dollars.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Luis Almagro, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Uruguay, addresses the opening of the 16th session of the Human Rights Council, in Geneva, Switzerland. Credit: UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

By Luis Almagro
MONTEVIDEO, Jan 18 2015 (IPS)

Two decades after the first Summit of the Americas, a lot has changed in the continent and it has been for the good. Today, a renewed hemispheric dialogue without exclusions is possible.

Back in the mid-1990s, at the time of the Miami summit, it was the time of imported consensus, models of economic and social development exclusively based on the market and its supposed perfect allocation of resources through the invisible hand.Today, all voices count, and if they do not, they will have to. The powerful club of the G8 turned into the G20; still, this is not enough to embrace the new reality of our hemisphere.

Hidden under a development rationale, the greatest wave of privatisation and deregulation took over the continent. The role of the state was reduced to be a facilitator of a process based on the principle of survival of the fittest. Solidarity, equity and justice were all values from the past and poverty a necessary collateral damage.

However, these values were in the top of the minds of the people of the hemisphere, who turned their backs to these policies and instead during the past 15 years, have forcefully supported the alternatives that combine economic growth with social inclusion, broadening opportunities for all citizens.

Economic growth went hand in hand with social inclusion, adding millions to the middle class – which today accounts for 34 percent of Latin Americans – surpassing the number of poor for the first time in the history.

If this was possible it was because governments added to the invisible hand of the market, the very visible hand of the state.

And this took place within the context of the worst post war global financial crisis that led to an unprecedented recession in the United States and Europe, which the latter still strives to leave behind.

Growth with social equity turned out to be the new regional consensus.

Today, this binds the region together.

Today, conditions are present to set up a more realistic cooperation in the Americas, where all members could partner in equal conditions, from the most powerful to the smallest islands in the Caribbean.

Today, nobody holds the monopoly over what works or does not; neither can anybody impose models because the established truths have crashed against reality. While in the 1990s social exclusion in domestic policies and voice exclusion at the international level were two sides of the same token, this in not any longer acceptable.

Today, all voices count, and if they do not, they will have to. The powerful club of the G8 turned into the G20; still, this is not enough to embrace the new reality of our hemisphere.

To the existing bodies, the region has added in this past decade the dynamic UNASUR in South America and CELAC in the Americas, thus leaving the OAS as the only place for dialogue among all countries of the Americas, whether large, medium, small, powerful or vulnerable.

But, governmental or inter-governmental actors by themselves are not the only answer to the problems of today´s world. Non-state actors of the non-governmental world, the private sector, trade unions and social organisations must be part of the process.

Leaders need to interpret the time in order to generate an agenda for progress, but progress that is tangible for people, for citizens, to whom we are accountable to.

Therefore, in a more uncertain international economic environment, we should focus on maintaining and expanding our social achievements and a new spirit of cooperation in the Americas can be instrumental for that.

The Summit of the Americas in Panama, in April 2015, may be the beginning of this new process of confidence building, where all countries can feel they can benefit from a cooperative agenda. This will be a historical moment because this time there will be no exclusions.

The recent good news on the diplomatic front related to the normalisation of diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Cuba and the participation of Cuba in the Summit represent an additional positive signal. Panama deserves the support of the entire region before and during the Summit.

This will be a great opportunity to strengthen democratic values, the defence of human rights, institutional transparency and individual freedoms together with a practical agenda for cooperation for shared prosperity in the Americas.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Emberá dwellings in a clearing in the rainforest. The Emberá-Wounaan territory covers nearly 4,400 sq km and the indigenous people want to manage the riches of their forest to pull their families out of poverty. Credit: Government of Panama

By Emilio Godoy
PANAMA CITY, Oct 22 2014 (IPS)

For indigenous people in Panama, the rainforest where they live is not only their habitat but also their spiritual home, and their link to nature and their ancestors. The forest holds part of their essence and their identity.

“Forests are valuable to us because they bring us benefits, but not just oxygen,” Emberá chief Cándido Mezúa, the president of the National Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples of Panama (COONAPIP), told Tierramérica.

“It is organic matter, minerals in the forest floor, forms of life related to the customs of indigenous peoples,” added Mezúa, the seniormost chief of one of Panama’s seven native communities, who live in five collectively-owned indigenous territories or “comarcas”.

In this tropical Central American country, indigenous people manage the forests in their territories through community forestry companies (EFCs). But Mezúa complained about the difficulties in setting up the EFCs, which ends up hurting the forests and the welfare of their guardians, the country’s indigenous communities.

Of Panama’s 3.8 million people, 417,000 are indigenous, and they live on 16,634 sq km – 20 percent of the national territory.

According to a map published in April by the National Environmental Authority (ANAM), drawn up with the support of United Nations agencies, 62 percent of the national territory – 46,800 sq km – is covered in forest.

Cándido Mezúa (centre), the high chief of the Emberá-Wounaan territory, is calling for an integral focus in forest management that would benefit Panama’s indigenous people. Credit: Courtesy of COONAPIP

And this Central American country has 104 protected areas that cover 35 percent of the national territory of 75,517 sq km.

But each year 200 sq km of forests are lost, warns ANAM.

The EFCs “are an effort that has not been well-developed. They merely extract wood; the value chain has not been developed, and the added value ends up outside the comarca,” said Mezúa, the high chief of the Emberá-Wounaan comarca on the border with Colombia, where his ethnic group also lives, as well as in Ecuador.

The indigenous leader said the EFCs help keep the forests standing in the long term, with rotation systems based on the value of the different kinds of wood in the management areas. “But it is the big companies that reap the benefits. The comarcas do not receive credit and can’t put their land up as collateral; they depend on development aid,” he complained.

Only five EFCs are currently operating, whose main activity is processing wood.

In 2010, two indigenous comarcas signed a 10-year trade agreement with the Panamanian company Green Life Investment to supply it with raw materials. But they only extract 2,755 cubic metres a year of wood.

The average yield in the comarcas is 25 cubic metres of wood per sq km and a total of around 8,000 cubic metres of wood are extracted annually in the indigenous comarcas, bringing in some 275,000 dollars in revenue.

In five years, the plan is to have 2,000 sq km of managed forests, the indigenous leader explained.

The government’s Programme for Indigenous Business Development (PRODEI) has provided these projects with just over 900,000 dollars.

Community management of forests in indigenous territories is a pending issue in Panama. Tropical forest in the province of Bocas del Toro, in the north of the country. Credit: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

But only a small proportion of forests in indigenous territories is managed. Of the 9,944 forest permits issued by ANAM in 2013, only 732 went to the comarcas.

Looking to U.N. REDD

In Mezúa’s view, the hope for indigenous people is that the EFCs will be bolstered by the U.N. climate change mitigation action plan, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+).

“We want to pay for the conservation and sustainable use of forests,” the coordinator of REDD+ in Panama, Gabriel Labbate, told Tierramérica. “It is of critical importance to find a balance between conservation and development. But REDD+ will not resolve the forest crisis by itself.”

REDD+ Panama is currently preparing the country for the 2014-2017 period and designing the platform for making the initiative public, the grievance and redress mechanism, the review of the governance structures, and the first steps for the operational phase, which should start in June 2015.

UN-REDD was launched in 2007 and has 56 developing country partners. Twenty-one of them are drawing up national plans, for which they received a combined total of 67.8 million dollars. The Latin American countries included in this group are Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama and Paraguay.

Because forests trap carbon from the atmosphere and store it in tree trunks and the soil, it is essential to curb deforestation in order to reduce the release of carbon. In addition, trees play a key role in the water cycle through evaporation and precipitation.

Panama’s indigenous people believe that because of the position that trees occupy in their worldview, they are in a unique position to participate in REDD+, which incorporates elements like conservation, improvement of carbon storage and the sustainable management of forests.

But in February 2013, their representatives withdrew from the pilot programme, arguing that it failed to respect their right to free, prior and informed consultation, undermined their collective right to land, and violated the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

They only returned in December, after the government promised to correct the problems they had protested about.

In REDD+ there should be a debate on “the safeguards, the benefits, the price of carbon, regulations on carbon management, and legal guarantees in indigenous territories,” Mazúa said.

“We want an indigenous territory climate fund to be established, which would make it possible for indigenous people to decide how to put a value on it from our point of view and how it translates into economic value,” the chief said.

“The idea is for the money to go to the communities, but it is a question of volume and financing,” said Labbate, who is also in charge of the Poverty-Environment Initiative of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and the U.N. Development Programme.

Poverty and the environment are inextricably linked to Panama’s indigenous people. According to statistics published Sept. 28 by the government and the U.N., Panama’s overall poverty rate is 27.6 percent, but between 70 and 90 percent of indigenous families are poor.

Indigenous representatives are asking to be included in the distribution of the international financing that Panama will receive for preserving the country’s forests.

They also argue that the compensation should not only be linked to the protection of forests and carbon capture in the indigenous comarcas, but that it should be part of an environmental policy that would make it possible for them to engage in economic activities and fight poverty.

Indigenous leaders believe that their forests are the tool for reducing the inequality gap between them and the rest of Panamanian society. “But they have to support us for that to happen, REDD is just part of the aid strategy, but the most important thing is the adoption of legislation to guarantee our territorial rights in practice,” Mazúa said.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The town of Taboga viewed from the sea. Credit: Creative Commons

By Emilio Godoy
TABOGA, Panama, Oct 16 2014 (IPS)

Fermín Gómez, a 53-year-old Panamanian fisherman, pushes off in his boat, the “Tres Hermanas,” every morning at 06:00 hours to fish in the waters off Taboga island. Five hours later he returns to shore.

Skilfully he removes the heads and scales of his catch of sea bass, snapper, marlin and sawfish. He delivers the cleaned fish to restaurants and hotels, where he is paid four dollars a kilo, a good price for the local area.

“I use baited hooks, because trammel nets drag in everything. That’s why the fishing isn’t so good any more: the nets catch even the young fry,” said this father of three daughters, who spent years working on tuna-fishing vessels.

Gómez lives 200 metres from Taboga island’s only beach, in a town of 1,629 people where the brightly painted houses are roofed with galvanised iron sheets. Located 11.3 nautical miles (21 kilometres) from Panama City, the mainstay of the island is tourism, especially on weekends when dozens of visitors board the ferry that plies between the island and the capital twice a day.

Gómez, who comes from a long line of fishermen, tends to go out fishing at midnight, the best time to catch sea bass. On a good day he might take some 30 kilograms.

“The fishing here is good, but we are dependent on what people on the other islands leave for us,” said Gómez, tanned by the sun and salt water.

The island of Taboga, just 12 square kilometres in area, lies in the Gulf of Panama and is the gateway to the Las Perlas archipelago, one of the most important nodes of coral islands in this Central American country of 3.8 million people.

From the air, they appear as mounds emerging from the turquoise backdrop of the sea, surrounded by what look like dozens of steel sharks, the ships waiting their turn to pass through the Panama Canal.

The isthmus of Panama possesses 290 square kilometres of coral reefs, mostly located on the Atlantic Caribbean coast, which harbour some 70 species. Coral reefs in the Pacific ocean host some 25 different species.

What the fisherfolk do not know is that their future livelihood depends on the health of the coral reefs, which is threatened by rising sea temperatures, maritime traffic, pollution and illegal fishing.

 Seabed corals on underwater mountains in Coiba National Park in Panama. Credit: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

In Coiba National Park, in western Panama, and in the Las Perlas islands, “the diversity of the coral and associated species has been sustained in recent years. We have not detected any bleaching, but a troublesome alga has appeared,” academic José Casas, of the state International Maritime University of Panama (UMIP), told IPS.

“It’s threatening the reef,” said the expert, who is taking part in a project for the study and monitoring of reef communities and key fisheries species in Coiba National Park and the marine-coastal Special Management Zone comprising the Las Perlas Archipelago. The study’s final report is due to be published in November.

Algal growth blocks sunlight and smothers the coral, which cannot survive. Experts have also detected the appearance of algae in Colombia and Mexico.

The project is being carried out by UMIP together with Fundación Natura, Conservation International, the Autonomous University of Baja California, in Mexico, and the Aquatic Resources Authority of Panama (ARAP).

Researchers are monitoring the coral in Coiba and Las Perlas in Panama. They took measurements in March and August, and they will repeat their survey in November.

There are differences between the two study zones. Coiba is little disturbed by human activity; it is a designated natural heritage area and a protection plan is in place, although according to the experts it is not enforced. Moreover, Coiba Park is administered by the National Environmental Authority (ANAM).

A protection programme for Las Perlas, to be managed by ARAP, is currently in the pipeline.

Reefs are essential for the development and feeding of large predators like sharks, whales, pelagic fish such as anchovy and herring, and sea turtles, the experts said.

In Panama’s coral reefs, ARAP has identified species of algae, mangroves, sponges, crustaceans, molluscs, conches, starfish, sea cucumber, sea urchin, as well as groupers, snappers, angelfish and butterflyfish.

Fishing generates some 15,000 jobs in Panama and annual production is 131,000 tonnes, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census.

An Environmental Agenda for Panama 2014-2019 (Agenda Ambiental Panamá 2014-2019), published by the National Association for the Conservation of Nature (ANCON),

Fundación MarViva, Fundación Natura and the Panama Audubon Society, proposes the passage of a law for wetlands protection, emphasising mangroves, mudflats, marshes, swamps, peat bogs, rivers, coral reefs and others.

On the Caribbean coast, coral reefs around the nine islands of the Bocas del Toro archipelago, 324 nautical miles (600 kilometres) west of Panama City, are experiencing bleaching caused by high water temperatures.

This was a finding of a study titled “Forecasting decadal changes in sea surface temperatures and coral bleaching within a Caribbean coral reef,” published in May by the U.S. journal Coral Reefs.
Angang Li and Matthew Reidenbach, of the U.S. University of Virginia, predict that by 2084 nearly all the coral reefs they studied will be vulnerable to bleaching-induced mortality.

They simulated water flow patterns and water surface heating scenarios for the present day and projections for 2020, 2050 and 2080. They concluded that reefs bathed by cooler waters will have the greatest chances of future survival.

Bocas del Toro adjoins the Isla Bastimentos National Park, one of 104 protected areas in Panama covering a total of 36,000 square kilometres, equivalent to 39 percent of the national territory.

“Local communities need education in resource management, sustainable use, fisheries zoning and fisherfolk organisation,” Casas said.

The next phase of the corals project, financed with 48,000 dollars this year and requiring about 70,000 dollars for 2015, will involve quantifying the value of ecosystem services provided by coral reefs.

Gómez has no plans to change his trade, but he can see that his grandchildren will no longer follow the same occupation. “Fishing is going to be more complicated in future. They will have to think of other ways of earning a living,” he told IPS, gazing nostalgically out to sea.

Edited byEstrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Valerie Dee

Thanks to the expansion, the Panama Canal will be able to accommodate ships that carry up to 14,000 containers, instead of the current 5,000. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
PANAMA CITY, Oct 3 2014 (IPS)

With the expansion of the canal, Panama hopes to see its share of global maritime trade rise threefold. And many Panamanians hope the mega-engineering project will reduce social inequalities in a country where development is moving ahead at two different speeds.

The expansion is happening one hundred years after the inauguration of the canal that links the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. At the heart of the project is a third set of locks, larger than the current two, which will accommodate ships with a maximum length of 400 metres, a maximum width of 52 metres and a draught of 15 metres.

Currently the 12,000 ships going through the canal every year have a maximum length of 294 metres, a maximum width of 32 metres and a draught of 12 metres, which means the canal handles only about five percent of global seaborne trade.

The construction work, which began in 2007 and is to be completed in December 2015, is 80 percent done, Ilya de Marotta, the engineer in charge of the expansion works in the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), the government agency responsible for the management of the canal, told IPS.

The aim of the expansion is to boost the canal’s share of global shipping traffic to 15 percent, Olmedo García, director of the University of Panama’s Canal Institute, explained in an interview with IPS.

The 5.2-billion-dollar project will mean the 79-km canal will be able to handle larger vessels capable of carrying nearly three times as many containers.

“The canal now contributes 1.1 billion dollars a year to the national budget. Gross revenues are 2.3 billion dollars, but operating the canal absorbs 1.2 billion,” the academic explained.

“As soon as we finish the expansion, we have to think of building a fourth set of locks, which would cost 12 billion dollars,” said García, because the canal “is and will be the country’s main economic and commercial activity.”

De Marotta said “the expansion was indispensable because the canal was reaching the maximum capacity of boats that could go through. The demand for bigger ships is a global tendency, for bulk carriers and liquefied natural gas carriers – a client we don’t have because they are bigger vessels.”

“This is a good business that we’ll be able to attract now,” she said. “The idea is to avoid falling behind in global trade; with the new locks a container ship could carry 12,000 to 14,000 containers,” the engineer said.

According to projections, the country’s canal revenue will have climbed to 2.5 billion dollars by 2019 and to six billion by 2025, García said.

“The big advantage is that we not only have the Panama Canal, but also the logistics centre; together they represent 40 percent of our GDP. We have the best logistics connectivity in Latin America, with ports on each ocean, railways and the free trade zone,” he said.

“We can create multimodal trade with the merchandise distribution ports,” he added.

The neglect of the historic centre of Colón near the Caribbean Sea entrance to the Panama Canal and next to the city’s Free Trade Zone reflects the contrast between the pace of economic growth and social development in this Central American country. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

Social development at another level

But Panama’s priorities must change in order for the promising economic prospects engendered by the expansion of the canal to translate into benefits for the poorest segments of the population.

Despite annual GDP growth of around seven percent, because of the high levels of inequality, 27.6 percent of the population is poor according to figures from Sept. 28, although García and other academic sources told IPS the poverty rate is actually nine percentage points higher.

In rural areas of this country of 3.8 million people poverty stands at 49.4 percent, compared to 12 percent in urban areas. Worst off are the country’s small indigenous minority, who suffer from a poverty rate of 70 to 90 percent.

And according to official figures from August, 38.6 percent of the economically active population is engaged in the informal sector of the economy.

Thousands of families lack piped water and services such as health care and transportation.

Alfredo Herazo, 29, lives in the capital but takes a bus every day to the city of Colón, where he works in a soldering workshop that he and his father set up. “I don’t like this life but I don’t have any other options,” he told IPS at the end of a long day of work, as he got ready for the 79-km commute back to Panama City.

Colón, the second largest city in Panama, is a port near the Caribbean Sea entrance to the canal and is surrounded by the area that was the Panama Canal Zone when it was under U.S. control.

The canal was fully handed over to Panama on Jan. 1, 2000, as stipulated by the “Torrijos- Carter” treaties signed by the two countries in 1977.

The 450-hectare Colón Free Trade Zone is the world’s second largest free trade area after Hong Kong, with 2,500 companies that import and re-export with a total annual business volume of 30 billion dollars – although business dipped in 2013 because of disputes with Colombia and Venezuela, its biggest clients.

The Colón Free Trade Zone receives 250,000 visitors a year from all over the world.

“Like any Panamanian, I would like to work on the canal or in the duty free zone, because of the salaries paid there. The canal is our pride and joy. If I get the chance, I would be a solderer there,” Herazo said.

The young man said “the problem with the canal, from the point of view of the ordinary citizen, is that we don’t see the profits, which aren’t distributed among the population.”

The neglect of the rundown historic buildings in Colón contrasts sharply with the modern free trade zone, illustrating the gap between the vibrant growth of the canal and the country’s financial and trade centres and the desperation of those included from the boom.

Cesar Santos, 32, has been living in Colón for seven years, making a living selling fruit and vegetables in the Municipal Market in the city centre. He sets up his stand early every morning across from the Municipal Park.

“With this I only have enough to live as a poor man. Life in Colón isn’t good,” he told IPS.

He lists the problems in the city, stressing the lack of sanitation and decent drainage systems. “When it rains, everything floods, the streets are impassable, the city is paralysed. After a downpour, everything is flooded,” he said.

Besides the lack of urban infrastructure, what bothers him the most is the living conditions of most of the people living in the city.

“People here are really poor,” he said. “People live in condemned houses. Besides all the assaults and thefts, this is a city that has been forgotten by the governments; good thing we have the free trade zone, otherwise there would be even worse poverty,” Santos said, while three customers nodded their heads in agreement.

García, in Panama City, said “The financial centres have to transfer part of their wealth. There is a serious social fracture. The canal can’t just be a channel for trade, communication and world peace. Panamanians need the social debts to be repaid, and part of the wealth should be transferred to the people.”

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Vicente Castrellón proudly shows his biofortified rice crop. The 69-year-old farmer provides technical advice to other farmers participating in the Agro Nutre programme in the central Panamanian district of Olá. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
PANAMA CITY, Sep 16 2014 (IPS)

Panama is the first Latin American country to have adopted a national strategy to combat what is known as hidden hunger, with a plan aimed at eliminating micronutrient deficiencies among the most vulnerable segments of the population by means of biofortification of food crops.

The project began to get underway in 2006 and took full shape in August 2013, when the government launched the Agro Nutre Panamá programme, which coordinates the improvement of food quality among the poor, who are concentrated in rural and indigenous areas, by adding iron, vitamin A and zinc to seeds.

“We see biofortification as an inexpensive way to address the problem by means of staple foods that families consume on a daily basis,” Ismael Camargo, the coordinator of Agro Nutre, told IPS. Panama has pockets of poverty with high levels of micronutrient deficiencies, he explained.

In 2006 research began here into biofortification of maize; two years later beans were added to the programme; and in 2009 the research incorporated rice and sweet potatoes, as part of a plan that is backed by the National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation.“We are producing three harvests a year, I provide technical support for other farmers. For now it’s for family consumption, but some grow more than they need and earn a little money selling the surplus." -- Vicente Castrellón

Panama’s Agricultural Research Institute and academic institutions are involved in Agro Nutre, which has the support of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and Brazil’sn governmental agricultural research agency, Embrapa.

Some 4,000 of the country’s 48,000 subsistence level or family farmers are taking part in the current phase, planting biofortified seeds.

Adding micronutrients to staple foods in the Panamanian diet became a state policy in 2009. So far, five varieties of maize, four of rice and two of beans, all of them conventionally improved and with a high protein content, have been produced experimentally and approved for release.

“The project began in rural areas, because that is where the extreme poverty is, and where farmers produce for subsistence,” food engineer Omaris Vergara of the University of Panama told IPS.

She added that in this phase, “the commercialisation of these foods is not being considered – the aim is to improve the nutritional quality of the diets of family farmers.”

According to Vergara, the biggest hurdle for the expansion and growth of Agro Nutre is the lack of research infrastructure.

“The project is focused on vulnerable populations. Academic institutions will carry out impact studies, but they haven’t yet begun to do so because the studies are very costly,” said the engineer, who sees the lack of research facilities as the weak point of the project.

According to figures from Agro Nutre, of the 3.5 million people in this Central American country, one million live in rural areas. And of the rural population, half live in poverty and 22 percent in extreme poverty.

But the worst poverty in Panama is found among the 300,000 indigenous people who live in five counties, 90 percent of whom are poor.

Beans and rice in Olá

Isidra González, a 54-year-old small farmer, had never heard of improving the nutritional quality of food with micronutrients until she and her oldest son began five years ago to plant biofortified seeds on their small plot of land in the community of Hijos de Dios in the district of Olá, which is in the central province of Coclé.

Now the 70 families in that village next to the only road in the area produce biofortified crops: beans on small plots climbing tropical lush green hills and rice on nearby floodable land.

“I think these seeds are better and produce more. They grow with just half the amount of water,” González, who has been involved in the project since the experimental phase, told IPS. “People like these crops because they have more flavour and are really good – my kids eat our rice and beans with enthusiasm, you can tell,” she added, laughing.

Vicente Castrellón, a 69-year-old local farmer, plants improved seeds and became a community trainer to help farmers in the district.

“We are producing three harvests a year, I provide technical support for other farmers. For now it’s for family consumption, but some grow more than they need and earn a little money selling the surplus,” he told IPS.

“Life here is very expensive for farmers like us,” Castrellón said in Hijos de Díos, which is 250 km from Panama City, over three hours away by car.

He added that it was not easy for the families in Olá to switch over to biofortified seeds. “It took nearly a year to get them to join Agro Nutre,” he said. “But now people are excited because for every 10 pounds that are planted, they grow 100 to 200 pounds of grains,” he added, proudly pointing to the rice plants on his plot of land.

The inclusion of the fourth crop, sweet potatoes (Imopeas batata), was a strategic move, researcher Arnulfo Gutiérrez explained.

The sweet potato, which had nearly disappeared from the Panamanian diet, is the world’s fifth-largest crop in term of production and FAO is promoting its expansion worldwide. The incorporation of sweet potatoes in Panama has the aim of boosting consumption and in 2015 two or three improved varieties are to be released.

Luis Alberto Pinto, a FAO consultant, forms part of the Agro Nutre administrative committee and is the national technical coordinator in the first two indigenous counties where improved seeds are being used, Gnäbe Bugle and Guna Yala.

“We are working in four pilot communities,” he told IPS. “In Gnäbe Bugle we are working with 129 farmers in Cerro Mosquito and Chichica, and in Guna Yala we are working with 50 farmers on islands along the Caribbean coast.

“We work in accordance with their customs and cultures, incorporating these products in a manner that can be sustained in time,” Pinto said. “Our hope is to expand the project to all of the indigenous counties.”

Besides science and production, the project requires constant lobbying of legislators and government ministries, to keep alive the political commitment to biofortification as a state policy.

Eyra Mojica, WFP representative in Panama, told IPS it now seems normal to her to walk down the corridors of parliament and visit the offices of high-level ministry officials.

“We have worked in advocacy with legislators, directors, ministers and new authorities,” she said. “The issue of food security is so complex. The WFP has become the main support for supplying information on nutrition to the authorities. There is a great deal of ignorance.”

By 2015, the WFP hopes to introduce cassava and summer squash as new biofortified crops.

“We want to have a basket of seven biofortified foods,” Mojica said. “The idea is to move forward by incorporating small groups, of women farmers for example. We are also looking into working with the school lunch programme, starting next year.”

Biofortification of staple foods with micronutrients, to reduce hidden hunger, was developed by HarvestPlus, a programme coordinated by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

A family travelling by boat along the San Juan River, a biodiversity-rich area on the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Credit: Germán Miranda/IPS

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 10 2013 (IPS)

A team of scientists who analysed the richness of plant species around the world concluded that the ecosystems in need of immediate protection in order to meet the 2020 conservation goals set by the Convention on Biological Diversity are largely concentrated in Latin America.

Humanity’s life support system, which provides our air, water and food, is powered by 8.7 million different kinds of plants, animals and other living species. But those species are going extinct at an accelerating rate, representing a major threat to future human survival.

Recognising this threat, nearly every country in the world has agreed under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to protect 17 percent of the planet’s land areas and conserve 60 percent of the world’s plant species by the year 2020.

These twin goals, included in the 20 Aichi Targets, can only be achieved if far more land in the Caribbean, Central America and northern South America is properly protected, according to a new study published Sep. 6 in the journal Science.

The study, “Achieving the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Goals for Plant Conservation”, analysed the distribution of 110,000 different plant species to discover that about 67 percent the world’s plants live in 17 percent of the planet’s land area – mainly in tropical and subtropical regions.

“Our paper sets out the priority areas for protection, based on their species richness,” said report co-author Stuart Pimm from Duke University, in the eastern U.S. state of North Carolina.

Those priority areas include Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, northern Peru and the Caribbean islands, Pimm told Tierramérica*.

Costa Rica is home to nearly 800 endemic species, found nowhere else in the world. Canada, which is nearly 200 times larger in area than the small Central American nation, has only about 70 unique or endemic species scattered across its nine million square kilometres of land area.

The reasons for this disparity are Canada’s cold climate and the last Ice Age, which buried the entire country in ice several kilometres deep 10,000 years ago.

Less than one sixth of these priority regions are protected, the report found. While Costa Rica has protected at least 20 percent of its land area, far more than nearly any other country, there is not enough data to know if that is enough, Pimm said.

“When it comes to plants, we don’t have the data to determine how much should be protected in any one country or where these protected areas should be inside a country,” he noted.

There is far more information on birds and animals, which has been used to identify so-called “biodiversity hot spots”.

This new study confirms most of these spots, but takes the analysis further with better methodology. There is a correlation between the diversity of plants and that of other species, but there are also plenty of exceptions. A tropical forest might have many amphibians, while a tropical island with similar numbers of plants may have none, Pimm explained.

Most existing national parks and protected areas are often in remote areas or in barren and inhospitable areas. With this new data, species-rich areas can be targeted for protection.

“The hard reality is that most of the priority areas in need of protection are in generally poor countries, like Madagascar or Ecuador,” said study co-author Clinton Jenkins, a tropical ecologist and conservation expert from North Carolina State University, who also works with a Brazilian conservation NGO.

“Costa Rica has to protect more of its area than Canada if we want to stem the rising tide of extinctions,” said Jenkins in an interview with Tierramérica.

Mobilising international support to protect biodiversity in other countries has been very difficult. Under the CBD Strategic Plan for reaching the 2020 goals, developed countries agreed to double biodiversity aid by 2014, and to maintain those levels until the final year of the plan.

“This is key to achieving any target,” CBD spokesperson David Ainsworth told Tierramérica.

Ecuador proposed to protect 10,000 square kilometres of its Amazon region as a national park, instead of allowing oil drilling, through the Yasuní-ITT initiative. It asked the international community to contribute 350 million dollars a year to offset the foregone oil revenues, Jenkins noted.

But after five years, the fund to leave the oil in Yasuní Park untapped had collected only 13.3 million dollars, and now Ecuador is preparing to allow drilling to proceed.

“A new road has already been blasted through the region,” Jenkins said.

Roads inevitably lead to deforestation, with negative impacts on local indigenous communities, he added. The Tagaeri and Taromenane indigenous peoples live in voluntary isolation in the region.

Oil drilling using extended reach technology could minimise the damage, by eliminating the need for roads. It is not necessarily more costly, but not all companies have the expertise to do it, he said.

“If the oil is going to be drilled, then it’s up to the Ecuadorian government to make sure companies make the minimum impact,” said Jenkins.

There are parts of the world that are simply more important than others when it comes to biodiversity. Yasuní is one. “Either species are protected from extinction, or they are gone forever and no one will ever experience them again,” he stressed. “I personally think it is immoral to allow species to go extinct.”

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Excerpt:

Forest in Sierra de Manantlán biosphere reserve in western Mexico.Credit: Comisión Nacional de Áreas Protegidas

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, May 25 2013 (IPS)

Issues related to the ownership of forest carbon and to prior consultation mechanisms threaten to derail plans for the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of Forests (REDD+) in some countries of Latin America, according to experts.

The problems are hindering the design of Mexico’s plan in the framework of the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD). In Panama, they have prompted the country’s indigenous peoples to withdraw from the programme.

“The previous government let slip the opportunity of concluding the process for fear of social activism, especially on the part of indigenous people and campesino communities,” Gustavo Sánchez, head of the Mexican Network of Campesino Forestry Organisations (Red MOCAF), told IPS.

The administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, whose six-year term began in December, has not said “whether or not it will adopt the current draft” of the national plan, he said.

“When it comes to the plan, Mexico is the second most advanced country in the Mesoamerican region (southern Mexico and Central America), because Costa Rica is already engaged in consultations, after reaching an agreement between native peoples and the government,” Sánchez said.

REDD+ is a climate change mitigation action plan that currently finances national programmes in 16 countries of the developing South in a quest to combat deforestation, reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and promote access by participating countries to technical and financial support.

The initiative was launched in 2008 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), with the goal of promoting conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

In Latin America the participating countries are Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama and Paraguay, while associate members that have not so far received financing are Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Peru. A total of 46 countries in the developing South are participating.

Mexico’s forested area covers 65 million hectares in the territories of some 2,300 communities, of which 600 manage forestry enterprises, according to the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry (CCMSS).

This country of nearly 117 million people emits 748 million tonnes a year of CO2, one of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. Close to 16 percent arises from livestock farming, deforestation and other soil uses.

The authorities estimate that 150,000 hectares of forest are lost every year, but environmental organisations put deforestation at over 500,000 hectares a year.

In February, Panamanian indigenous groups withdrew from the pilot programme in their country, saying that the process was disrespecting their right to free, prior and informed consent and their collective right to traditional lands, as well as violating the 2007 U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

“The state has marginalised us. The first thing the programme must guarantee is safeguards for indigenous people. Continuing in the programme makes no sense,” said Héctor Huertas of the National Union of Indigenous Lawyers of Panama (UNAIPA), which represents the National Coordinating Body of Indigenous Peoples in Panama (COONAPIP).

Huertas told IPS that COONAPIP, a confederation of the seven native peoples in this Central American country, will be bringing a lawsuit in an administrative court against the Panamanian National Environmental Authority in a bid to halt REDD+.

Panama, a country of 3.5 million people, is home to some 417,000 indigenous people, according to the 2010 census, living on 16,634 square kilometres, equivalent to 29 percent of the national territory. Indigenous lands are regarded under the constitution as collectively-owned property that cannot be sold.

The crisis of the plan in Panama has fed suspicion in dozens of NGOs and academic institutes around the world that REDD+ does not represent a viable solution for environmental problems.

But it may serve as a lesson for the countries involved in designing the REDD+ programmes.

The study “Legal analysis of cross-cutting issues for REDD+ implementation: Lessons learned from Mexico, Viet Nam and Zambia”, says that “Mexico’s laws do not specify who owns carbon, but we can presume that forest owners and rights holders will be the direct beneficiaries.

“The clarification of land tenure rights is a crucial component of forest-based approaches to combating climate change and defining related carbon rights,” says the study, published May 2 by UN-REDD.

Another report, “Putting the Pieces Together for Good Governance of REDD+: An Analysis of 32 REDD+ Country Readiness Proposals”, published in March, concludes that few countries involved in the initiative “consider specific design options or challenges related to REDD+ benefit sharing, conflict resolution, or revenue management systems.”

However, the report makes the positive point that “most include plans to address these issues as readiness activities move forward.”

The publication, by Lauren Goers Williams of the U.S.-based World Resources Institute, says: “Relatively few readiness proposals identify specific next steps to address land tenure challenges or establish mechanisms to coordinate with local institutions during REDD+ planning and implementation.”

Although six REDD+ pilot projects, known as early actions, are under way in Mexico, it is unlikely that the national strategy will be completed this year.

“It is worrying to see the progress made with the early actions, because there is no national core concept, which should have come first,” Sánchez complained. ”Less importance is being given to tenure and rights, and more to measuring, reporting and verifying carbon. More progress is being made on the technical side, but there is no criterion for sustainability.”

NGOs involved in the process will ask the National Forestry Commission for clarity with respect to negotiation of the national strategy, for the settling of critical issues.

In the case of Panama, Huertas said that indigenous people “were demanding that indigenous experts be included on the programme, and that consultations be channelled through COONAPIP. Now we want a suspension of REDD+ based on the precautionary principle, because fundamental rights are being violated.”

The precautionary principle states that when potential adverse effects are not fully understood, the activities in question should not proceed.

The withdrawal of the native communities is being discussed at the 12th session of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, being held in New York May 20-31.

UN-REDD is currently carrying out an external evaluation of the Panama national programme.

The UN-REDD study says: “To ensure the successful and equitable distribution of REDD+ benefits, legislation on REDD+ should incorporate clear and harmonised legal procedures and rules, allowing for open participation among actors at subnational and national levels.”