Diagnóstico sobre la Basura Marina en Panamá

Abstract

En Panamá más del 80% de la Población esta sentada en las costas del Pacifico donde existen grandes urbes en la ciudad de Panamá y otros conglomerados humanos como lo son las cabeceras de las provincias donde si bien es cierto no se encuentran cerca de la costa, tienen una relación con estas a través de la red hidrológica que es rica tanto en numero de ríos como en volumen de agua vertidos a las costas.

The Republic of Panama is located in the central part of the American continent, is an Isthmus that can be considered a marine country, in that the life of its inhabitants maintains a great influence originated of the coastal and marine activities. Most of the population (more than 80%) is located on the Pacific coast, where large cities like the City of Panama exist and other human conglomerates, like the heads of the provinces, are related to the coasts through the hydrographic network that is rich in the number of rivers and volume of water drained on the Pacific coast. Through this hydrographic network most of the marine litter it is transported to the coasts and waters of Panama. Big cities but do not collect their wastes, being the adjacent sea and its beaches the final dump. The sea currents that circulate within the Gulf of Panama from the East towards the West disperse marine litter in coasts and beaches that are the base for planned tourist development. Fisheries, an import ant part of the economy and a bastion of exports, are affected by the marine litter particularly by plastics and ghost fishing. In general the volume of marine litter is increasing and the measures taken in comparison to the dimension of the problem we can affirm that they are weak. Our expectation is that the joint effort at national level and a union of countries through the Plan of Action for the Southeast Pacific contributes to solve in the mid- term the problem of marine litter.