Panama's Chiriqui and Bocas del Toro provinces are being invaded by oportunistic, bottom-line-oriented international hydro-electric and mining corporations. Their economic and political power, initially, is winning-out against the environmentalists and indigenous tribes of Panama. However, new strategies are in motion to balance the corporate/environmental playing field in Panama and other vulnerable nations. Greenpeace and other environmental NGO's are now qualifying corporations and countries by their "green-indexing." Their voice carries great weight with the world's stock markets. Enlightened green investors are growing by the millions worldwide. These investors reward those corporations who can truly qualify themselves, by world standards, as being green.
Powerful international law firms, often in partnership with labor unions, environmentalist groups, and indigenous tribes are also challenging corporations who pollute and destroy our natural resources. Their legal, financial, environmental,
indigenous, labor union partnering is key to establishing a balanced playing field with corporate polluters. This new environmental paradigm is desperately needed in Panama. It is the best way to establish a reasonable "mid-ground" between radical environmentalists and radical corporate profiteers.
Recently, law firms have filed environmental cases in the U.S. and in Panama. They have also teamed-up with human rights groups, indigenous and environmental NGO's to file complaints with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). This Commission, based in Washington D.C., addresses complaints of individuals or organizations that allege human rights violations committed in OAS member countries. Environmental polluters, mainly petroleum, mining, and hydro-electric companies, frequently intrude and trample on the rights of indigenous tribes and poor people, who lack the power to defend themselves against corporate pocketbooks. Finally, justice, beyond the often ethereal jurisprudence of Latin Courts, is now available through the IACHR.
It's all about the money and the bottom-line. These hydro and mining concerns have tried to posture themselves as being "green-oriented." Unfortunately, they have not yet qualified their words and actions with reality.
As an attorney and environmentalist, working on corporate pollution cases in Peru, Indonesia, and Panama, I would like to establish a dialog with corporations and environmentalists. We are interested in establishing a reasonable "mid-ground" whereby both sides can work together in harmony.
Michael Pierce
April 19, 2008
Little concern has been given to date about . I would suggest that they think seriously about Green They are not yet concerned about Some enlightened international corporations recognize that Panama's real wealth resides in its tropical rain forest, pristine
