Coastal Resilience

With 2,490 km (1,550 miles ) of coastline, Panama is a focal point for Audubon’s coastal resilience strategy, which aims to restore or improve the management of 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of coastal bird habitat in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Panama, we’re working to mainstream nature-based and green infrastructure solutions into national and regional planning and policy, with the aim of encouraging smarter development and preserving the services that intact coastal ecosystems provide.

We’re prototyping this strategy via a project that will protect and enhance the coastal natural capital of Panama. The project, a collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank and the Panama Audubon Society, will help Panama to:

• ​Include the carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems in the country’s nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Climate Agreement
• Support stronger climate adaptation efforts
• Reduce degradation and coastal deforestation
• Build mechanisms that drive funding toward mangrove and coastal conservation
• Drive behavioral change in local constituencies to support conservation of natural assets

Valuing, Protecting, and Enhancing Coastal Natural Capital of Panama

Audubon is collaborating with the Inter-American Development Bank and our local partner the Panama Audubon Society on a three-year, $2.3 million project that supports carbon capture, biodiversity, human well-being, and coastal resilience. The project aims to elevate the importance of Panama’s coastal mangrove ecosystems and related wetlands, the carbon they sequester, and the biodiversity and livelihoods they support by shifting perceptions of the value of natural capital.

We will achieve this goal through a multi-pronged approach that includes:

• Delivering robust science that establishes a blue-carbon baseline
• Establishing economic valuation of ecosystem services provided by mangroves and related wetlands
• Building knowledge, awareness, and engagement with key stakeholders to drive action that increases protection of these ecosystems
• Strengthening policies that promote mangrove conservation and reforestation.

These efforts will be applied in the Bay of Panama, with its mosaic of urban landscapes and mangrove habitat, and the Bay of Parita, a rural landscape in a state of in transition. The innovative project will help Panama include blue carbon associated with coastal natural capital into the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. It will also support stronger climate-adaptation efforts, reduce degradation and deforestation, and build mechanisms that drive funding toward mangrove and coastal conservation.

Growing Support for Shorebirds and Coastal Wetland Conservation in Priority Areas

The National Audubon Society and the Panama Audubon Society are teaming up to improve coastal wetland conservation in the Bays of Panama and Parita. These habitats on Panama’s Pacific coast offer some of the most important stopover and wintering habitat for neotropical migrant shorebird species in the Americas.

The initiative includes analyses of shorebird population levels and efforts to prevent the loss of mangrove cover in the Bay of Panama. It also supports the development of a conservation plan for the Bay of Parita that engages key stakeholders, identifies threats, and plots a path for future conservation efforts. Finally, it addresses coastal solid waste—in particular plastics that are killing off mangrove forests, reducing roosting habitat, and presenting a direct threat to shorebirds through ingestion.

Building a Constituency

Audubon and its partners are building momentum and public commitment to bird conservation by engaging one million people across the hemisphere. Our efforts in Panama center around the Aulas Verdes (Green Classrooms) program, presented by our local partner, the Panama Audubon Society. Since 2009, Aulas Verdes has provided environmental curricula, funding for field trips, and other support for schoolteachers.

Currently active in 25 schools and serving more than 3,500 students each year, the program’s goal is to make conservation relevant to generations of future Panamanian voters, scientists, and decision-makers.

Developed in 2009, Aulas Verdes is the Panama Audubon Society’s signature environmental education program. Via field trips and weekly hands-on activities, schoolchildren experience nature and learn how local ecosystems support birds, fish, and other biodiversity found in and around the Bay of Panama. The National Audubon Society is proud to support this program, which has reached more than 20,000 students.