Panama Rainforest as a Highly Biodiverse Area of Central America

Panama rainforest is an extremely biodiverse place. It hosts more than 9,915 known species of plants, 218 species of mammals, 302 species of birds, 242 species of reptiles and 182 species of amphibians. Really quite impressive!

Typical tropical animals such as sloths, jaguars, iguanas, poison dart frogs, armadillos, tapirs, harpy eagle (Panama's national bird) and many others call Panama rainforest home.

Panama is also home to many endangered animals, such as the Panamanian golden frog and the pygmy three-toed sloth who are now listed as critically endangered. Currently, the forest covers around 58% of the total land area of Panama.

Rainforest is found not only on the mainland but also on Panamanian islands. Some of the most well known Panamanian islands are the Barro Colorado Island which lies right at the heart of the Panama Canal, as well as the Coiba Island located along the country's Pacific coast.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Panama rainforest had lost much of its cover as well as biodiversity during the Panama Canal construction. We will probably never find out just how many plant and animal species disappeared as a result of it. Like many other forests around the world, Panama rainforest is under constant pressure exerted by a whole host of agents, for the purposes of economic and social development. And this obviously leads to the country's rainforest destruction.

Alongside the clearance of the rainforest for cash crops (such as bananas and coffee), timber logging operations and subsistence farming, the most important cause of deforestation in Panama since the 1960s has been cattle ranching that requires conversion of the forest into pasture lands. There are also pressures of deforestation from very large development projects promoted by governments and companies which stand to significantly benefit from them.

Among such projects are a plan to build a road connecting Panama and Colombia via the Darien rainforest, as well as a so called Plan Puebla Panama whose aim is to create a "development corridor" between Mexico and Panama with a host of roads, airports, dams as well as factories based on cheap labour.

In order to protect its rainforests and their biodiversity from the ever present danger of destruction, the Panamanian government established a number of national parks in the country. Some of the most famous of them are Darien National Park, La Amistad National Park (which Panama shares with Costa Rica) and the Coiba National Park.

Ecotourism has also been put forward as one of the most promising business propositions that can create employment and secure a financially sustainable future for the people living in and around Panama rainforest. Ecotourism is a successful industry in other tropical countries which, we believe, can also be achieved in Panama.

Learn more from Panama rainforest and Panama Canal construction.