One of AIDA’s goals is to promote the creation and strengthening of marine protected areas, as a tool for preserving marine biodiversity. Coiba National Park in Panama is one such site. We seek to help protect the park because of its incredible biodiversity and the benefits the marine protected area brings to the surrounding marine environment.

The Coiba National Park was established in 2004 to protect and preserve the special plants and wildlife therein. Many nations in the region benefit from this park in that its islands, coasts, coral reefs and marine areas comprise a tremendously rich biodiversity. Moreover, it is part of a corridor of marine protected areas that begins with Isla del Coco in Costa Rica, passes by Coiba in Panama and Malpeo and Gorgona in Colombia, ending with the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador. In recognition of its great value, Coiba National Park was declared a World Natural Heritage site by UNESCO in 2005.

Although the center of the park is the large Coiba Island, the marine protected area covers more than 667,000 acres, including both smaller islands and a significant expanse of water. The coasts of the islands are home to a great variety marine life: at least three types of endangered marine turtles lay their eggs on the beaches, and the waters contain types of coral reefs that exist nowhere else along the Panamanian pacific coast.

In 2008, Coiba National Park was in danger because the Panamanian National Assembly changed the law that created the park, to allow tuna fishing using encircling purse seine nets in the protected area. Such fishing would not only have impacted tuna populations, but also likely have harmed a variety of sensitive marine species that seek refuge around the islands, including dolphins, billfish, whales, and turtles. Thanks to the pressure of a coalition of Panamanian and international NGOs, in which AIDA participated, on March 25, 2009, the Panamanian National Assembly reinstated the legal prohibition on using the encircling nets, an important triumph for conservation of the Park.