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PANAMA
Panama Forest Figures
Forest CoverTotal forest area: 4,294,000 ha % of land area: 57.7%
Primary forest cover: 3,023,000 ha % of land area: 40.6% % total forest area: 70.4%
Deforestation Rates, 2000-2005Annual change in forest cover: -2,600 ha Annual deforestation rate: -0.1% Change in defor. rate since '90s: -61.7% Total forest loss since 1990: -82,000 ha Total forest loss since 1990:-1.9%
Primary or "Old-growth" forests Annual loss of primary forests: -43200 ha Annual deforestation rate: -1.3% Change in deforestation rate since '90s: 5.8% Primary forest loss since 1990: -216,000 ha Primary forest loss since 1990:-18.4%
Forest ClassificationPublic: 9.6% Private: 90.4% Other: 0% Use Production: 7.2% Protection: 21.9% Conservation: 34% Social services: 0% Multiple purpose: 36.8% None or unknown: n/a
Forest Area BreakdownTotal area: 4,294,000 ha Primary: 3,023,000 ha Modified natural: 1,210,000 ha Semi-natural: n/a Production plantation: 60,000 ha Production plantation: 1,000 ha
PlantationsPlantations, 2005: 61,000 ha % of total forest cover: 1.4% Annual change rate (00-05): 3,800,000 ha
Carbon storageAbove-ground biomass: 980 M t Below-ground biomass: 258 M t
Area annually affected byFire: n/a Insects: n/a Diseases: n/a
Number of tree species in IUCN red listNumber of native tree species: 1,200 Critically endangered: 19 Endangered: 71 Vulnerable: 106
Panama loses more than 1 percent of its primary forest cover every year. Deforestation directly threatens one of the country's most important sources of income, the Panama Canal. The tropical cloud forest of the canal watershed ensures the flow of billions of gallons of clean water necessary to operate the canal locks (roughly two billion gallons per day). Population growth in these forests has resulted in a decline of forest cover from 80 percent (1952) to less than 15 percent (1994) of the watershed, a development that increases soil erosion into the canal, which can clog locks and create shoals that ground ships. In 1998, below-average rainfall from el Niño forced the canal to limit the amount of cargo large ships could carry. In an effort to safeguard the canal, the Panamanian government has protected remaining watershed forests while launching reforestation initiatives.
Most deforestation and forest degradation in Panama results from road construction, logging, industrial gold mining, and colonization, which leads to clearing for agriculture, pasture land, and fuelwood collection. Of these activities, colonization is responsible for the bulk of forest loss.
Road construction and other infrastructure projects in Panama's Darien Gap is of ongoing concern to environmentalists who fear that such endeavors will open the largely inaccessible region to settlement by colonists and development by loggers.
Logging—especially illegal logging—has increased in Panama since the early 1990s. In 2002, the country officially produced some 111,000 cubic meters of wood products, but more wood was illicitly extracted. Still, the collection of fuelwood results in a far higher amount of wood loss from the country's forests.
Panama has tremendous potential for eco-tourism given its rich marine habitats and forest biodiversity. The country has several excellent protected areas including Coiba, an island in the Pacific; Barro Colorado Island—home to one of the world's leading tropical research centers, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution—and Bocas del Toro on the Caribbean side of Panama. On the Pacific side, Panama has several excellent, but largely deserted, surf spots.
Developer uses cover of national holiday to clear rainforest near Colon, Panama
(11/06/2009) On Tuesday, November 3rd, while Panamanians celebrated Independence Day Holidays, heavy machinery unexpectedly entered and began cutting down tropical forest and mangroves near Galeta outside of Colon, Panama, report local sources. mongabay.com confirmed that the latest clearing has been carried out "almost in secret during national holidays so there would be no reaction from the public or the media." The clearing, conducted by a transportation cooperative called Serafin Niño, from Colon, is occurring in the buffer zone of the Galeta Protected Landscape and near Galeta Point Marine Laboratory, a facility of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The land will likely be used to store transportation equipment that moves cargo to and from the ports of Colon and the Free Zone.
The faster, fiercer, and always surprising sloth, an interview with Bryson Voirin
(10/25/2009) Sloths sleep all day; they are always slow; and they are gentle animals. These are just some of the popular misconceptions that sloth-scientist and expert tree-climber, Bryson Voirin, is overturning. After growing up among the wild creatures of Florida, spending his high school years in Germany, and earning a Bachelors degree in biology and environment at the New College of Florida, Voirin found his calling. At the New College of Florida, Voirin "met Meg Lowman, the famous canopy pioneer who invented many of the tree climbing techniques everyone uses today."
Concerns over deforestation may drive new approach to cattle ranching in the Amazon
(09/08/2009) While you're browsing the mall for running shoes, the Amazon rainforest is probably the farthest thing from your mind. Perhaps it shouldn't be. The globalization of commodity supply chains has created links between consumer products and distant ecosystems like the Amazon. Shoes sold in downtown Manhattan may have been assembled in Vietnam using leather supplied from a Brazilian processor that subcontracted to a rancher in the Amazon. But while demand for these products is currently driving environmental degradation, this connection may also hold the key to slowing the destruction of Earth's largest rainforest.
Extinction debt can last millions of years
(07/29/2009) Extinction can be set in motion millions of years before a species' actual demise, suggesting that present-day drivers of habitat destruction and degradation may have already doomed many species to eventual extinction, report researchers writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B online.
REDD readiness plans for Panama, Guyana approved but rejected for Indonesia
(07/02/2009) The World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) has approved REDD readiness plans (R-Plans) for Panama and Guyana, and rejected a plan for Indonesia, reports the U.N. and the Bank Information Center, an advocacy group.
Saving one of the last tropical dry forests, an interview with Edwina von Gal
(06/29/2009) Often we hear about endangered species—animals or plants on the edge of extinction—however we rarely hear about endangered environments—entire ecosystems that may disappear from Earth due to humankind’s growing footprint. Tropical dry forests are just such an ecosystem: with only 2 percent of the world’s tropical dry forest remaining it is one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems. A newly established organization, the Azuero Earth Project, is working not only to preserve some of the world’s last tropical dry forest on the Azuero peninsula in Panama, but also to begin restoration projects hoping to aid both the forest’s viability and the local people. Edwina von Gal, a landscape designer, is one of the founders of the Azuero Earth Project, as well as president of the organization.
First-ever photo of jaguar on Barro Colorado Island
(05/04/2009) Researchers have captured the first-ever photo of a jaguar on Barro Colorado Island, a key tropical forest research site in Panama, reports the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). The picture was snapped by a camera trap set up by Montclair State University zoologist Jackie Willis and her husband Greg. The pair have been using the traps — which use infrared to detect and photograph passing wildlife — for animal surveys on Barro Colorado since 1994.
Plant communities changing across the globe, says scientist Sasha Wright
(03/29/2009) Having studied plant communities across three continent and within widely varied ecosystems—lowland tropics, deciduous forests, grasslands, and enclosed ecosystems on hill-tops—graduate student Sasha Wright has gained a unique understanding of shifts in plant communities worldwide as they respond to pressures from land use and global climate change. “Plant communities are certainly changing,” Wright told Mongabay.com in a March 2009 interview. “These changes are undoubtedly affected by an increased occurrence of extreme weather events, temperature fluctuations, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, human land use, and in some cases urbanization of populations.”
Mass amphibian die-offs affect ecosystems
(10/19/2008) Large-scale die-offs of amphibians due to the outbreak of a killer fungal disease is impacting the forest ecosystem in which they live, reports a new study published in the journal Ecosystems.
Armageddon for amphibians? Frog-killing disease jumps Panama Canal
(10/12/2008) Chytridiomycosis — a fungal disease that is wiping out amphibians around the world — has jumped across the Panama Canal, report scientists writing in the journal EcoHealth. The news is a worrying development for Panama's rich biodiversity of amphibians east of the canal.
Carbon market may fund dam in Panama that threatens natural reserve
(09/01/2008) The UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) — a scheme that provides funds to projects that reduce emissions in developing nations — may be used to finance a hydroelectric dam in Panama which, according to environmentalists, threatens a biologically rich World Heritage site and an indigenous tribe, the Ngobe.
STRI goes carbon neutral as Panama indigenous community to see carbon payments from forest conservation
(08/21/2008) The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), the Panama-based branch of the Smithsonian Institution, will offset its carbon dioxide emissions by working with an indigenous community to conserve forests and reforest degraded lands with native tree species. The agreement was announced Sunday, August 17, 2008.
Researchers discover "artistic" moth in Panama
(07/29/2008) Researchers have discovered a new species of Bagworm Moth that wraps its eggs individually in "beautiful cases" fashioned from its golden abdominal hairs, according to a new paper published in the Annals of the Entomology Society of America. The behavior is unique among insects.
Climate change will increase the erosion of coral reefs
(07/28/2008) Coral reefs are particularly susceptible to climate change. Warming waters have been shown to bleach coral, killing off symbiotic algae that provide them with sustenance, and often leading to the death of the coral itself. Much attention has been placed on bleaching coral, but now scientists have discovered an additional danger to coral reefs in a warming world: erosion.
Frog chooses whether to lay eggs on land or in water
(05/19/2008) Researchers in Panama have discovered a frog that can choose whether it lays its eggs on land or in water. It is the first time such "reproductive flexibility" has been found in a vertebrate.
Cache of rare and undiscovered species under threat in Panama
(04/21/2008) Rare and previously undiscovered species are under threat by loggers, ranchers, and poachers in an isolated patch of cloud forest in Panama, a prominent group of scientists has warned. The group, the Association for Tropical Biology and conservation (ATBC), has called on the Panamanian government to immediately provide protected-area status to the region.
Bats protect crops from insects
(04/04/2008) Bats eat as many insects at night as birds do during the day, according to research published in the journal Science.
Bats eat as many insects as birds
(04/03/2008) Bats eat as many insects at night as birds do during the day, according to research published in the journal Science.
The Panamanian golden frog declared extinct by BBC Natural History crew
(02/04/2008) A national symbol of Panama has been declared extinct by BBC filmmakers. The crew was in Panama to film the unique frog for David Attenborough's most recent series on reptiles and amphibians, entitled Life in Cold Blood. The filmmakers achieved their objective and captured the golden frog on film, including rarely seen behvaior.
Scientists discover four species of anole lizards in 24 hours in Panama
(01/13/2008) In January of 2006 a biological expedition uncovered four anole species in a single day. Dr. Gunther Koehler, a member of the expedition, described the discoveries as "a once in a life time experience; during expeditions before, we had found new species, one at a time--but four species within 24 hours, that was incredible!"
Two new species of salamander discovered in Panama
(09/09/2007) Scientists have discovered two new species of salamanders from the mountainous Costa Rica-Panama border region. The findings, published by David B. Wake, Jay M. Savage, and James Hanken in the journal Copeia, push the number of salamanders known in the region to 24, making it a hotspot in terms of salamander biodiversity.
Groups demand AES withdraw from Panama dam projects
(08/23/2007) More than 50 green groups demanded Thursday that AES Corporation withdraw from three controversial hydroelectric projects that are threatening La Amistad International Park in Panama. Environmentalists say the dams threaten to displace wildlife and local communities -- the Naso and Ngobe people -- in the World Heritage site.
