NEWS: Cordillera de Coiba Marine Protected Area Pushes Panama’s Ocean Protection over Thirty Percent

Cordillera de Coiba Marine Protected Area, Panama | Photo credit: Max Bellow, @max_bello

Since launching in October 2018, the Wyss Campaign for Nature’s primary goal has been to accelerate the pace and scale of locally-driven, place-based conservation efforts around the world and to support and encourage international commitments to protect 30 percent of the planet’s lands and oceans by 2030 – in order to meet the scale of the crisis facing nature. 

The work, led by local communities, Indigenous Peoples, nonprofit organizations, and governments to identify and, ultimately, establish permanent protections for critically important lands and waters is often hard and time consuming. The end-result is a system of conserved areas that represents the values of communities and that safeguards wildlife, protects clean air and water, preserves culturally-significant resources, and supports sustainable economies.

On June 8th, 2021, Panama’s President Laurentino Cortizo and Minister of Environment Milciades Concepción did just that by signing a decree that dramatically expands protections for Panama’s deep sea Coiba Ridge, marking a historic day, as Panama will surpass the goal of protecting 30 percent of its marine area nine years ahead of the 2030 target. With this decree, Panama and Chile now lead Latin America in overall domestic marine protections, securing more than 30 percent of their waters as marine protected areas.

To mark the historic news, the Wyss Foundation issued the following statement from its president Molly McUsic:

“By expanding the Cordillera de Coiba marine protected area, the government of Panama is not just taking bold action to safeguard the region’s exceptional wildlife and biodiversity, but also strengthening Panama’s robust ocean-based economy, and establishing itself as a global ocean conservation leader. Thank you and congratulations to President Cortizo, Minister Concepción, and the people of Panama for permanently protecting

The Cordillera de Coiba marine protected area is an expansion of a smaller conservation area created in 2015 covering 17,223 square kilometers. The expansion adds an additional 50,519 square kilometers of protection and will effectively engulf the current park, creating a MPA covering 67,742 square kilometers. Located off Panama’s Pacific coast, the Coiba Ridge is an ecological wonder within the Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape, a marine area covering nearly 2 million square kilometers, made up of islands, underwater mountains, and the coastlines of Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador. The region has long been a “Hope Spot,” identified by the non-profit ocean conservation organization Mission Blue as a special area of the ocean in need of protection, as well as a biodiversity hotspot, home to endangered sea turtles, whales, sharks, and countless species of seabirds.  

Of the newly expanded marine protected area, about two thirds are designated as “no-take” to fully protect the unique biodiversity of the region, while the remaining portion will exclude industrial fishing activity but continue to support the livelihoods of coastal communities in Panama. Critically, the expanded Cordillera de Coiba marine protected area adjoins Colombia’s Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary and the Yurupari-Malpelo marine protected area, creating a combined bi-national conservation area of more than 121,341 square kilometers.

With this act, Panama is set to become a true Blue Leader, a country that officially “highly and fully” protects 30 percent or more of its oceans. The Blue Leaders are a group of countries led by Belgium, focused on three priority goals:

• To call for a new global ocean protection target under the Convention on Biological Diversity;

• To protect at least 30 percent of the ocean through a network of highly and fully protected marine protected areas; and

• To ensure the conclusion of a robust new United Nations treaty for the high seas which will provide a legal mechanism to establish and manage fully and highly protected marine areas beyond national jurisdiction and modernize and strengthen assessment and management of human activities outside the protected areas.

The nations surrounding Panama, including Ecuador and Costa Rica, have committed to expanding protections for their own key habitats in the Eastern Tropical Pacific in order to preserve corridors and swimways for vulnerable animals, like sharks, large whales, sea turtles, and other species that migrate through the region. Ecuador has protected 13 percent of its waters while Costa Rica has protected just 2.7 percent, but both are aiming to follow Panama’s lead in conserving a full 30 percent of their marine territories. With this announcement, Panama has placed a key piece of the protection puzzle in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, protecting corridors for marine species that know no national boundaries.