Bioamistad is a site dedicated to informing the public about the current status of the La Amistad Biosphere Reserve, situated on the border of Panama and Costa Rica. La Amistad is an area of extreme beauty, high biodiversity, and important world heritage. At its core is the Parque Internacional La Amistad (PILA), a World Heritage site of unequaled stature facing unprecedented threats to its integrity.
The Reserve is also home to different indigenous communities. For instance, the Naso, Ngobe, and BriBri live along the edges (and in some cases inside) of PILA. This site hopes to provide valuable information on activities in and around La Amistad, including threats to the indigenous peoples and to the Reserve itself. We welcome you to take a look at additional pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/23406020@N07/.
Bioamistad is interested in comments by those who visit our site. We are concerned about biodiversity and indigenous rights, and look forward to helping build a coalition of other interested people. Although this site is new, many of the issues we discuss are not. Therefore, expect changes, updates, and revisions to occur as we further develop this resource. In addition, the site will include a Spanish version of everything in the near future.
Thank you and please help us to protect La Amistad.
Some very interesting points have been made here, it is refreshing to see that your site gets quality visitors.
Hello,
I am one of the authors of the Technical Report Supporting the CBD petition, listed on your website. (And my apologies re the ANAI website; we need to do better.) I am presently working on an updated and expanded report to be delivered at the time of the next UNESCO mission visit in February, 2010. Whereas the previous report covered just the Changuinola watershed, this edition will cover the entire park, both countries, both slopes.
I am having a totally unanticipated degree of difficulty in obtaining maps, preferably in digital form but even paper would do, that accurately show the park boundaries on the Panamanian side. I have seen two maps attributed to ANAM, one of which is pretty crude and the other riddled with errors.
Can you help? The ultimate product needs to show the park, indigenous territories and enough detail on the rivers so that we can delineate the major watersheds.
Thanks for any info, contacts, suggestions -maybe even a map.
If things ever calm down, maybe we can help your project in some way.
Pura Vida,
Bill McLarney
Asoc. ANAI
It’s been a while since the UN Relator visited Panama. But since then things are looking up for Changuinola actually.
Leaders of indigenous communities in Bocas del Toro sat down with both AES and government representatives to reach a social and financial agreement.
I think that speaks loud and clear.
Whether the company, government, and community leaders have agreed to an agreement or not, this does not necessarily impact the UN review of actions. Nor does it address the environmental impacts that UNESCO is concerned about. So in relation to the environmental impacts of these projects and the government approval of such projects, it doesn’t seem to be “loud and clear” that those issues are resolved.