Conserving Sherman and Piña Range

by Eric Jackson

On February 7 at Niko’s in Balboa the Panama Canal Historical Society drew a larger-than usual crowd to hear Charlotte Elton talk about the "San Lorenzo Effective Protection by Community Involvement" project that she coordinates. The four-year project aims to use and protect the historical and ecological treasures found at Fort Sherman and Piña Range, which the US Army abandoned in 1999, in a way that benefits the people who live nearby.

The project is an offshoot of CEASPA, the Panamanian Center for Social Studies and Action, which has been active on Colon’s Costa Abajo for many years. As past president of the Audubon Society of Panama, Elton also came to the project with a wealth of knowledge of the biological assets at stake — it’s one of the world’s most important bird sanctuaries.

"This is a social justice project," she said, arguing that "at least part of the canal area should be used to benefit those who live there." She described the community of Achiote, whose main economic activity is the cultivation of lowland coffee, and whose members tend to support forest preservation efforts both for their intrinsic value and for the possible economic benefits that they can bring.

The World Bank is backing a Meso-American Biological Corridor that stretches from the Yucatan to the Darien, along the Caribbean coast of the Central American isthmus. The corridor is the last bastion for many tropical forest species, and a crucial flyway for migratory birds.

In Panama the plan has been supported by an $8 million public budget and a string of parks and protected areas, but the missing piece was that part along the lower Chagres River that had been controlled by the US military, Fort Sherman on the river’s eastern bank and Piña Range on the west. Because it was being used to train soldiers in jungle warfare techniques, it was not possible for the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) to incorporate it into the national park system like much of the rest of the corridor. Moreover, because the politicians and bureaucrats who make most of the decisions about the Reverted Areas tend not to know or appreciate the Atlantic side in general, and because the real estate speculators have their eyes on other plums, there haven’t been a lot of specific plans and pressures about how the area should be used.

The area’s best-known public asset is Fort San Lorenzo, a ruined old Spanish fortress and prison overlooking the mouth of the Chagres River, which was abandoned by the Spaniards in 1823 after several centuries of famous battles with British raiders and less well known prison horrors. From time to time UNESCO and others have financed restoration work at the fort, and people with business interests try to keep the grass cut at least during tourist season, but what people know as Fort San Lorenzo is actually only a part of the Spanish defensive system in the area, with most of the rest now covered with jungle.

Thus when CEASPA went looking for grants to promote development with conservation, enough was known to identify the area as valuable, but not enough to attract swarms of fortune seekers. Elton said that the World Bank "worked overtime to get us in," and came up with the money for the San Lorenzo project.

There was and still is a maze of intersecting and overlapping lines of authority over the affected areas. The Interoceanic Regional Authority (ARI) controls the areas received from the United States, except for the Gatun Lake shore and the area just below the Gatun Dam, which are canal operating areas under the control of the Panama Canal Authority. ANAM is in charge of protecting the environment, the National Tourism Institute (IPAT) has the responsibility of promoting the area’s tourism potential, and the National Cultural Institute (INAC) is charged with protecting Fort San Lorenzo and other historical sites. All of these institutions have bigger fish to fry and skimpy budgets.

The confusing lines of authority have created opportunities for abuses. For example, there is illegal logging along the old road to Piña, but some of the logging that shouldn’t be happening has had ARI’s blessing, as people from outside the area got permits from the authority and tax breaks from the government for environmentally destructive "agroforestry" projects that involve cutting down the jungle and replacing it with teak trees.

Thus CEASPA brokered an inter-institutional agreement among ANAM, IPAT, INAC and ARI, and the government signed a contract with CEASPA. "We’re trying to get everybody on board, with a common approach," Elton explained. By untangling much of the red tape, the project has been able to attract yet more institutional support, from the Panama Canal Authority, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Center, the US Agency for International Development, the US National Forest Service, the Peace Corps, the World Monument Fund, American Express and the Nature Conservancy. "It gets complicated at times," Elton explained.

Good things are beginning to emerge from the inter-institutional maze. In Achiote, more environmentally friendly coffee growing techniques have been well received, artesans are making and marketing hammocks and other handicrafts and an aqueduct will soon be bringing the residents clean water for a change. In Escobal, which is right on Gatun Lake, an eco-tourism committee has been organized. Sherman and Piña Range are now guarded by 15 forest rangers, which when calculated in guards per hectare terms makes it only second to Barro Colorado Island as Panama’s best-protected forest area. Squatter invasions, illegal logging, the practice of stringing gill nets across the mouth of the Chagres and the extraction of sand from Piña Beach are being suppressed, for better and worse (better, because important public assets are being conserved, but worse, because economic options for some desperately poor local residents are being lost).

The San Lorenzo project is a four-year venture, about half completed at this point. Elton expressed concerns about things that may be coming. The developed parts of Fort Sherman are not part of the San Lorenzo project, and are slated for development. ARI has variously zoned that part of Sherman for tourism and industry without much apparent thought, and CEASPA is concerned about what sort of development will actually come to pass. The planned Panama Canal watershed expansion could profoundly affect the entire area, including both the wildlife and the people who live there.

"There are no recipes on how to get it right," Elton concluded. However, the San Lorenzo project’s community-oriented approach is likely to keep it on the right track.