In Panama’s Darién forest, Indigenous communities test a new way to fund conservation

Four Wounaan and Emberá-Wounaan villages in Panama's Darién forest ran a biodiversity monitoring project, using bioacoustic sensors and camera traps to document over 200 species across 18,000 hectares of threatened forest. The count included jaguars, Baird's tapirs and crested eagles, with at least 15 species classified as threatened.

The communities, working with the FSC Indigenous Foundation and Health In Harmony using a methodology from biodiversity credit company Savimbo, hope to use the data to join the biodiversity credit market as a source of income in an area with few economic options. One resident said the monitoring effort has already changed local behavior, including talk of posting no-hunting signs.

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