Juan Carlos Navarro’s efforts are best understood as attempts to fight the fragmentation of the country’s institutions and replace it with coordination. Across Panama’s environmental agenda he is not solely launching isolated measures but rather actively trying to connect the challenges he is facing from water governance, biodiversity protection, and long term conservation financing into a single state strategy capable of surviving political turnover. Furthermore, his efforts are also focused on mitigating risks associated with water scarcity, a vital resource for the country’s economy.
Pacto de Panamá con la Naturaleza (Nature Pledge)
The Pacto de Panamá con la Naturaleza is a 10-year strategic environmental roadmap (2025-2035) launched by the Ministry of Environment under Navarro in 2025. It tackles one of Panama’s most relevant issues regarding environmental protection: the fragmentation of efforts. It is a policy that aims to integrate three previously separate international environmental commitments into one unified national framework. It includes the Nationally Determined Contributions (CDN) on climate change, the National Biodiversity Strategy (ENBSAP) on biodiversity loss, and the Land Degradation Neutrality Strategy (NDT) on desertification and land degradation. Before this pledge, these three agendas, despite being interdependent, were treated as three independent agendas. A climate commitment to restore forests, for example, is simultaneously a biodiversity and land commitment. The Nature Pledge created shared targets, responsibilities, and financing through the Fondo Panamá Natural. The Pledge’s most ambitious reform aims to create a unified governance body, the Comité Nacional de Clima, Biodiversidad y Tierra (CONACLABIT), effectively binding all state entities to a coherent and non-duplicative environmental agenda. It is designed to replace redundant bureaucratic silos with a unified programme for the whole country. Rather than forcing separate state agencies, private partners and other stakeholders to navigate competing mandates, the committee would establish a singular legally binding authority managing decision-making, resource allocation and progress tracking. In Panama’s specific context, the Pacto operationalises three concrete national targets. The official Nature Pledge document submitted to the UNCCD and UNFCCC describes the pact as a unified framework of national commitments that consolidates Panama’s obligations under the Paris Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal biodiversity framework and LDN decisions, while also bringing ocean conservation and plastics under the same umbrella.
First, on water security, the NDT pillar promotes sustainable land management, rotational grazing, agroforestry, and efficient irrigation in the most stressed hydrographic basins: the La Villa, the Santa María, and the Chiriquí Viejo rivers. These basins are important as they feed both agricultural systems and the Canal watershed. Second, on deforestation, the CDN pillar sets a binding target to restore 100.000 hectares of degraded land and achieve net zero deforestation by 2035. This target directly addresses one of Panama’s most persistent environmental failures. Finally, on biodiversity, the ENBSAP pillar aligns Panama with the Kunming-Montreal Framework’s 30×30 rule: protecting 30% of land and ocean by 2030, a target Panama is already partially on track to meet, with 35% of its land holding some form of protected status. The Fondo Panamá Natural and support from the UN Green Climate Fund provide dedicated financing for adaptation programmes, ensuring that the Pacto is not merely aspirational but has a resource mobilisation architecture attached to it.
A core analytical claim of the Pledge is that climate, biodiversity and land agendas in Panama are already deeply interdependent. Academic work on Panama’s forests has highlighted how deforestation erodes both carbon stocks and the resilience of the natural environment.
The Pacto is Navarro’s institutional answer to the fragmentation of efforts regarding environmental policy. Rather than launching a new independent and isolated policy with risks of it tackling issues covered by another policy, he is building a comprehensive framework that forces coherence and cooperation across the whole state apparatus from ministries and regulators to the legislature and other public institutions. By unifying governance he is ensuring that one ministry’s development decisions are not contradicting another’s conservation commitments. It positions Panama as a model of cross-convention coherence, with active policies that bring a clear framework for different institutions to coordinate their efforts, eventually strengthening his credibility as President of the Forum of Environment Ministers of Latin America and the Caribbean as part of the UNEP. On a personal level, it also represents the most direct institutional expression of his firm belief that conservation, climate and development cannot be addressed in silos or with bureaucracy only; this policy is indeed his attempt to translate forty years of experience in the field into solutions the environment needs most.
There are, nonetheless, potential concerns associated with centralisation. Scholars of environmental governance in Latin and Central America note that while integrated governance frameworks seek greater policy coherence, they must also safeguard democratic accountability and meaningful participation by civil society and local actors, as environmental governance in the region continues to face persistent democratic and institutional deficits. The response of Panama has been to emphasise the participatory component of their processes, such as the 2025 consultation rounds and the involvement of local indigenous communities.
IWRM Action Plan 2022-2026
The Plan de Acción para la Gestión Integrada de los Recursos Hídricos (PAGIRH) is Panama’s national roadmap for moving from a fragmented, sector-by-sector model of water governance, toward a more integrated water resources management (IWRM) strategy for the period between 2022 and 2026. It was developed under the leadership of the Ministry of Environment with technical support from the Global Water Partnership Central America and the UN SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation for all) IWRM Support Programme. It identifies 35 priority actions across four IWRM dimensions which are: enabling environment, institutions and participation, management instruments, and financing. The plan is supported by an estimated budget of nearly 14 million balboas or $14 million.
Within the broader context of the country’s water policy architecture, PAGIRH is to be considered as a short to medium term plan directly complementing the targets of two longer strategic frameworks: the Plan Nacional de Gestion Integrada de Recursos Hídricos (PNGIRH) 2010-2030, financed by the Inter-American Development Bank and approved in 2011, as well as the Plan Nacional de Seguridad Hídrica 2015-2050: Agua para Todos.
PAGIRH translates this concept into four levels of reforms, the first one being institutional, where one of its headline actions is to create and operationalise the Instituto de Meteorología e Hidrología de Panama (IMHPA), which was approved by the National Assembly in 2021. The creation of this institute aimed at improving technical data and forecasting to guarantee better water management. Additionally, at the regulatory level, the plan seeks to prioritise the strengthening of permits, requirements and discharge rules. At the territorial level, it calls for basin-scale diagnoses and management plans in important watersheds, those located in the Arco Seco and those related to the Canal, to address pollution, deforestation and over-abstraction where the pressure is at its peak. Ultimately, at the international level, the plan is designed to be complemented by Panama’s accession in 2023 to the UN Water Convention, which requires parties to prevent and reduce transboundary impacts and use shared waters in a reasonable manner. It aims to identify the action plans that would offer solutions to the most urgent challenges on water management, facilitate the coordination between the different actors linked to water management, and back the processes of financing, both internal and external for the implementation of said actions.
The need for this plan and for the implementation of an integrated water resources management is measurable as in the most recent SDG 6.5.1 assessment, Panama’s implementation score was only reaching a level of 40% which places the country in the medium-low category compared to world averages.
Juan Carlos Navarro is a politician who gives importance to institutional recovery and tries to limit the fragmentation of institutions working closely with one another on environmental matters. PAGIRH is therefore an additional tool that allows him to pursue this objective. In a briefing on the Azuero water crisis, he and other officials described the contamination of La Villa and Estibana as the results of “decades of corruption and environmental anarchy” in the basin, directly referring to unregulated agro-industrial expansion, deforestation and lax oversight as the root causes of this anarchy. When Navarro later presented his 2024 institutional report to the National Assembly, he highlighted basin management, water‑quality laboratories and rapid‑response inspection teams among his five strategic axes, signalling that PAGIRH’s implementation is central to how he wants legislators to judge his performance.
For Navarro, this alignment of national planning, international cooperation and on the ground enforcement operations makes PAGIRH not just an inheritance but a fit with his preference for science-based and multilateral governance, along with his insistence on the fact that environmental policy must move beyond rhetoric and bureaucracy toward measurable change, as he describes himself and his coworkers as employees of the people responsible for an honest and transparent work. If implemented effectively, PAGIRH promises a more resilient and predictable water regime for Panama: one where canal operations, agricultural production and household taps depend less on ad hoc responses to drought or contamination, and more on a coherent system of basin planning, regulation and cooperation.
ANCON
The National Association for the Conservation of Nature, is an environmental non-profit organisation in Panama which is dedicated to the conservation of Panama’s natural heritage, the promotion of regenerative practices, and the reduction of pollution and conservation of watersheds. It was founded in 1985 by a group of businessmen, scientists, and community leaders, one of whom is Juan Carlos Navarro, who became its first executive directors. ANCON has been active for 40 years, and has become one of the most stable conservation organisations in Panama. It was created at a time when conservation had very little public visibility in Panama and when the protection of forests, watersheds and biodiversity was not seen as a priority. By promoting environmental protection as something that is essential for Panama’s national wealth, water security, and long term wellbeing, ANCON strengthened Panama’s environmental framework.
ANCON’s role has extended beyond individual projects to a broader network along Panama’s protected areas. As environmental conservation gained legitimacy, ANCON moved into a key position in Panama’s environmental policy process. It became a partner that could work with the government, local communities, and international actors to help create protected areas, and conservation plans. This gave ANCON a strategic role in shaping how new parks and reserves were created. The organisation was involved in the creation of a wide range of parks and reserves, including areas linked to the Canal’s watershed, marine ecosystems, biologically sensitive zones in Darién, Chiriqui, and Bocas del Toro. Around half of the parks and reserves that exist today are established with ANCON’s support, reflecting the organisation’s long term influence on Panama’s conservation initiatives.
ANCON has also been collaborating with MiAMBIENTE through a formal technical cooperation agreement to better coordinate actions to achieve biodiversity conservation. ANCON takes part in the Sustainable Darién project as an executing agency, while MiAMBIENTE provides institutional support, although the project was developed before Navarro took office. The project aims to transform around 4.500 hectares of traditional farming into silvopastoral systems, which are land management practices that intentionally integrate tree growing and livestock production into a single, mutually beneficial system, which will help improve soil and water quality in the Filo del Tallo-Canglón area. The organisation also participates in a broader environmental project, Alianza por el Millon, which aims to establish a national reforestation plan to recover degraded areas, implement conservation measures in watersheds to improve water quality and protect aquatic ecosystems, creating buffer zones, and finally to restore 1 million hectares of forests in 20 years. This is an alliance led by the Ministry of Environment, and supported by other institutions.
The Panama Natural Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) initiative – an innovative sustainable financing model that brings together site managers to jointly develop a comprehensive agreement securing long-term funding for clear, measurable social and environmental outcomes – was launched by MiAMBIENTE with the collaboration of ANCON and Fundacion Natura. The collaborative initiative aims to finance and manage Panama’s natural treasures, and transform and ensure the preservation of biodiversity of the National System of Protected Areas (SINAP). The SINAP contains 122 protected areas, 12 life zones, and ecosystems covering 35% land area and 54.3% marine area. In addition, ANCON and MiAMBIENTE have worked together on the Roadmap for Action on Plastics in Panama, the “Recicla por tu Futuro” recycling programme which aims to promote integrated solid-waste management, and build a circular economy through environmental education. The “Revolucion Azul” campaign, which is a collaboration between the Ministry of Environment, ANCON, the Coca Cola System and Nestle has the goal of reducing plastic pollution and consumption through collection and recovery in a cleaner urban environment strategy, foster innovation in plastic circularity, and raising environmental awareness to promote cultural changes.
ANCON works with local communities, businesses and international allies, but its influence also grew with working with the government. In the 1990s it helped provide the technical and financial support needed for the protection of key areas such as Darién, Soberanía, Chagres and Bocas del Toro. According to Navarro, this work was critical in strengthening the government’s capacity to protect more than 13% of Panama’s territory. Navarro’s relationship with the organisation is best understood as a shared drive for conservation. As one of the organisation’s founders, he helped set the idea that protecting Panama’s forests, watersheds, and biodiversity is part of national development. Although Navarro was one of ANCON’s founders and the organisation continues to acknowledge his legacy even after he left, the current collaboration with MiAMBIENTE is a technical agreement with clear goals and objectives to conservation and management of protected areas.
IE x RAIA Summer Research Programme:
This article is an excerpt from a report on Juan Carlos Navarro produced as part of a RAIA research programme on climate leaders. For a full picture of Navarro’s climate leadership, including the sources, read the full report. This project was fully financed by IE University’s School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs and School of Science and Technology.
Authors: Giulia-Elena Curt, Lucia María Sven Piederiet & Yassine Abada
Editor: Clarisa Gorrín
Project Lead: Dario Hasenstab
