Panama | Good News For Humankind

Big trucks at a copper mine, for article on Rights of Nature law

Panama copper mine to close after Supreme Court rules concession unconstitutional

By / November 28, 2023 / Good News For Humankind

Rights of Nature law just did something it had never quite done before at this scale: Panama’s Supreme Court unanimously used it to shut down one of the hemisphere’s largest copper mines, finding the concession failed to meet nature’s legal right to protection and regeneration. The ruling sets real precedent — any future project in Panama that can’t clear that same constitutional standard faces the same risk. The Canadian operator is pursuing international arbitration, so the dispute is far from over. Case by case, courtrooms across the Americas are turning ecological rights from policy aspirations into enforceable law.

Panama legally recognizes rights of nature

By Peter Schulte / March 23, 2022 / Good news links

The new law could have major implications for Panama’s land and energy development policies, which are now required to respect and protect the natural world’s new rights.

Bhutan, Suriname, and Panama are now “carbon-negative,” absorbing more emissions than they produce

By Peter Schulte / November 11, 2021 / Good news links

What they have in common is strong protection of their carbon-absorbing forests alongside increasingly tough measures to hold down climate-changing emissions.

Four Latin American countries join forces to form huge marine reserve

By Peter Schulte / November 5, 2021 / Good news links

Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, and Costa Rica announced the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor, a fishing-free corridor that will cover more than 200,000 square miles.

Panama bans single-use plastic bags

By Peter Schulte / September 23, 2019 / Good news links

Panama’s plastic bag ban has gone into effect. Panama became the first Central American country to ban single-use plastic bags in 2018.

image for article on Panama Canal opening

The Panama Canal opens, reshaping global maritime trade

By Peter Schulte / August 15, 1914 / Archive of Human Genius

The Panama Canal opened on 15 August 1914, when a ship called the Ancón slipped through 51 miles of freshly cut waterway and shortened the sea route between New York and San Francisco by more than half. Roughly 56,000 workers built it, most from the Caribbean. Four centuries of dreaming, finally made real.

Independence Act of Panama, for article on Panama independence 1821

Panama declares independence from Spain after 300 years of colonial rule

By Peter Schulte / November 10, 1821 / Archive of Human Genius

Panama’s independence began on November 10, 1821, when residents of a small town on the Azuero Peninsula publicly declared their break from Spain. The Grito de La Villa de Los Santos wasn’t a battle but a civic announcement, and within weeks it spread across the isthmus, ending more than three centuries of colonial rule.

image for article on Gran Colombia independence

Congress of Angostura declares Gran Colombia independent

By Peter Schulte / February 15, 1819 / Archive of Human Genius

Gran Colombia was declared on February 15, 1819, when fewer than 30 delegates gathered in the remote river city of Angostura and proclaimed a republic spanning today’s Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama. Simón Bolívar delivered the address that shaped it. The declaration opened a new chapter in the political story of the Americas.

angel silva V uYocR k k unsplash, for article on Monagrillo ceramics

Panama’s oldest pottery appears at the Monagrillo site

By Peter Schulte / January 20, 0001 / Archive of Human Genius

Monagrillo, a small coastal community on Panama’s Parita Bay, produced the oldest known pottery in Central America around 2500 B.C.E. Its people fished the tidal flats, hunted deer in the foothills, and ground maize on simple stones — traces only recently confirmed. Their modest bowls mark an independent chapter in humanity’s long story of learning to shape clay.

angel silva V uYocR k k unsplash, for article on Cueva people Indigenous Panama

Spanish colonists name diverse Indigenous groups of eastern Panama “Cueva”

By Peter Schulte / January 14, 0001 / Archive of Human Genius

The Cueva of eastern Panama weren’t actually one people. When Spanish colonists arrived in the early 1500s, they flattened a mosaic of distinct Indigenous communities under a single name, likely linked by a shared trade language rather than a shared identity. Recognizing that label as a colonial invention is helping scholars ask better questions about who these peoples really were.