Environmental crisis looms over Panama

by Willy Carrera Loza

Scientific studies give rise to the diagnosis that Panama confronts a progressive deterioration of its environmental quality and natural resources, which can explode in the faces of future generations if appropriate measures are not taken in time.

The degradation of Panama's soil is increasing at a rapid pace. Between 1970 and 1987 the rate of erosion increased by almost 60 percent, seriously affecting 27 percent of the nation's total land surface. This tendency continues and is especially acute in eastern Chiriqui, northern Veraguas and Cocle and the western extreme of Panama province, according to a report entitled "Geo-perspectives on the environment 2000," which was compiled by the government's Environmental Evaluation and Information and Early Warning Division.

Soil erosion is already at the root of many urban problems and rural conflicts, as people fleeing eroded and unproductive farms in the interior crowd into the cities, or invade indigenous lands or national parks in search of land that can feed their families.

In the city, air pollution levels exceed international norms of acceptability, with about 90 percent of the problem coming from vehicular emissions, according to Vaco Duke Hernández, the deputy director of the University of Panama's Specialized Analysis Unit. "Study results show that a great number of Panamanians are exposed to dangerous concentrations of airborne toxins every day," he said, "especially those who commute on our main streets and avenues, or who live along them."

Duke Hernández added that the pollution is most concentrated during the rainy months of May through mid-December, which also roughly coincides with the Panamanian school year, and that children are one of the population sectors that's most sensitive to such pollutants.

"We have to intensify our efforts to inspect and remove vehicles that contaminate the air and become serious public health threats," he recommended. Other necessary steps, in Duke Hernández's opinion, are the extension of the urban air monitoring system to measure a greater number of pollutants, measure in ways that render "real time" data, and measure around schools, hospitals and other critical institutions.

"Water will be the most valuable commodity in this century," Ligia Castro de Doens, the deputy director of the Water Center for the Humid Tropics in Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC) told us. "Thus there's a need to develop strategic plans to manage our hydrological resources in a coherent, rather than piecemeal, fashion. We have serious pollution problems in the rivers all over the Republic of Panama, especially those that run through the city and empty into the bay."

"Although there's time to reverse the damage, if we turn back on the the policies and programs designed to fight this pollution two things are going to happen," Castro de Doens predicted. "First, it will be more costly to reverse damage that has already been done. Second, it can get to the point where damage is irreversible, and entire ecosystems will be destroyed."

"There are human activities, land uses and production processes that are causing changes in biodiversity, directly or indirectly provoking the loss of habitats," she explained. Castro de Doens said that deforestation and erosion are visibly affecting ecosystems on the land, while pollution is the main cause of degradation of our aquatic and marine ecosystems and our wetlands.

Ricardo Rivera Jaramillo, natural heritage director for the National Environmental Authority (ANAM), pointed out that Panama has created a national system of protected areas, including bird refuges, national parks, natural monuments and marine parks, in order to limit the spreading environmental destruction. "In a sense, the protected areas are the backbone of the effort to conserve the country's biological wealth," he said, noting that the protected areas encompass some one million hectares, about one-quarter of Panama's territory.

In large part, Panama's main environmental problems flow from the lack of an environmental dimension to economic and social planning and development. The law that created ANAM began to address the problem by requiring environmental impact studies for many developments, but enforcing the law and changing old habits has not been an automatic process. Lately ANAM has been working with groups like the National Confederation of Private Enterprises (CONEP) and the Mining Chamber of Panama to spread awareness of the new requirements and to find new mechanisms to ensure cleaner development.

Bolívar Pérez, who heads ANAM's environmental protection office, said that "we don't have a satisfactory environmental culture," and thus argued for more emphasis on the cultural front as the key to halting environmental destruction. He noted that ANAM is working with other governmental entities, and has received grants and loans to educate people and institutions about environmental issues.

Lourdes Lozano, the coordinator of environmental health and development programs at the Institute of National Studies, told us that "the environment is the result of humanity's intervention in its natural surroundings. We have to educate, to put our hopes on the successful creation of environmental consciousness among the citizenry, to the extent that we can save the best of our planet, its diverse biological wealth."

Harley James Mitchell, president of the Law and Ecology Association, posited two very different alternatives. "If we conceive and implement norms based upon our common best interests, and do so across the board, without taking shortcuts, the errors that have been made in the environmental field can be corrected. On the other hand, the environmental deterioration amidst which we now live can very quickly make the country uninhabitable, from the viewpoints of health, natural resources and quality of life."