There is a battle raging in the Panama rain forests. The indigenous Wounaan people live in the Panamanian rain forests around the villages of Plantanares and Rio Hondo. Since the 1980s, these people have been trying to secure legal rights to the land that they live on. In 2011, they filed paperwork to claim a communal title to a tract of 150 square kilometers. After this, local authorities continued to give rights to non-indigenous ranchers and loggers.
In this forest grows rosewood which has risen in price to $1.5 million per cubic meter in some Chinese markets. Many loggers either receive permits or illegally enter the forests to harvest these valuable trees. In 2012, the Wounaan people investigated a logging site, but the investigation ended with both a tribe chief and a logger shot and killed. Recently, with the help of the US nonprofit, Rainforest Foundation, the Wounaan people have equipped themselves with drones and motion activated cameras to capture evidence of illlegal logging activities in an attempt to secure their land and save the forests.
Original Al Jazeera Article (link)
In this forest grows rosewood which has risen in price to $1.5 million per cubic meter in some Chinese markets. Many loggers either receive permits or illegally enter the forests to harvest these valuable trees. In 2012, the Wounaan people investigated a logging site, but the investigation ended with both a tribe chief and a logger shot and killed. Recently, with the help of the US nonprofit, Rainforest Foundation, the Wounaan people have equipped themselves with drones and motion activated cameras to capture evidence of illlegal logging activities in an attempt to secure their land and save the forests.
Original Al Jazeera Article (link)