Foreign Minister Erika Mouynes assured last week that Panama is part of this select group of countries, following the decision to expand the limits of the area of managed resources of the Coiba Underwater Mountain Range, in Panamanian territorial waters of the Eastern Tropical Pacific.

During her intervention in a high-level debate, she affirmed that the initiative will benefit the ecological connectivity between the marine areas of Costa Rica, Colombia and the Galapagos Islands, in Ecuador, which will facilitate the migration of threatened marine species and the conservation of an area of recognized world value for its biodiversity and endemism.

Mouynes said that Panama supports climate diplomacy strategies, aimed at protecting and restoring the oceans, whose conservation is essential to maintain the productive base and the essential ecological processes that guarantee life.

The official added that Panama’s ‘green agenda’ promotes other initiatives for the care of the oceans such as the National Wetlands Policy, the National Action Plan for Marine Litter and support for projects developed by international organizations to reduce the presence of waste in the seas.

‘For Panama, an interoceanic country and already carbon-negative (one of the three worldwide), guaranteeing the health of the bodies of the sea is a matter of subsistence,’ said the diplomat, who also announced that Panama will host the eighth edition in 2022 of the International Conference Our Oceans.

This will be the first appointment after the entry into force of the main global commitments, within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Paris Agreement to promote a sustainable and responsible management of plastics.

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