Advocacy group rates Environment Minister mediocre

The Center for Environmental Advocacy (CIAM) says that the Ministry of the Environment (Miambiente) has intensified its campaign to discredit the work of non-governmental organizations and environmental defenders, who have questioned initiatives and projects that have a negative impact on the ecosystems of Panamanians. 

The environmental organization also denounced that under the current administration of Minister Emilio Sempris the environmental management, has been broken and weakened ignoring the proposals and claims for the conservation of the Coiba National Park, Camino de Cruces National Park and forest areas within the Canal watershed , disregarding La Amistad International Park and acting with shameless derision in the face of the devastation of East Panama and Darién; and ignoring its responsibility to defend Boná Island, and the Panama Canal basin, devastated by the expansion of  Omar Torrijos Avenue  and the Pan-American Highway in Loma Cová. 

The CIAM, described the management of Sempris as mediocre since it has taken actions without valid scientific grounds and arguments and that has meant a setback of more than 25 years in environmental institutions, in the stability of personnel and quality of public management of this sector.  

In addition, the environmental organization, with more than 10 years since its creation, demanded that the government respect the environmental civil society organizations and experts and scientists who have been working silently for decades and committed to the sustainable use of the environmental heritage of Panama , as they have done, among others, with the MarViva Foundation and the Coiba National Park.