Panama — Cordillera de Coiba Managed Resources Area (Área de Recursos Manejados Cordillera de Coiba, ARMCC)
68,000 square kilometers of improved protections
Lead Partners: MigraMar & WildAid Marine
The Cordillera de Coiba Managed Resources Area is an important migratory and feeding area for tuna, sea turtles, sharks, and whales, including numerous vulnerable, endangered, and some critically endangered species, according to IUCN.
Photo Credit: Kevan Mantell
On June 8, 2021, Panama became the second country in the Eastern Pacific to protect at least 30% of its waters – a global target many scientists say humanity must achieve to secure the long-term health of the ocean. This impressive accomplishment was the result of expanded marine protections for the Cordillera de Coiba Area of Managed Resources, which serves as a key link within the Eastern Tropical Pacific for highly migratory species, including tuna, sea turtles, sharks, and whales. The Coiba Ridge is the last refuge for many threatened animals, and home to an exceptional array of creatures found nowhere else on Earth.
The Cordillera de Coiba is an offshore marine protected area (MPA) located off the Pacific southwestern coast of Panama. Two thirds of the area is fully protected from damaging extractive activities, such as industrial fishing and seabed mining, and the remaining third is restricted to sustainable use. The area was originally designated in 2015 and expanded in 2021. This was done to conserve the exceptional biodiversity living in an underwater topography featuring a volcanic mountain chain and seamounts that connect the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) with the Islands of Malpelo and Gorgona (Colombia), and the Cocos Island (Costa Rica) with the Island of Coiba (Panama).
The Cordillera de Coiba hosts nine mountain ranges, 24 mountains, and an abyssal trench (- 4,745 meters) that harbors a diversity of sessile species, such as corals, sponges, tunicates, polychaetes and macroinvertebrate species, and associated fish fauna unique to these depths. Many of these species are still unknown to humans. Across the area, there are more than 330 species of fish and at least 14 species of marine mammals, 12 of which are protected according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), including the blue whale, the sperm whale, and the fin whale.
The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Wyss Foundation, and Mission Blue have supported Panama in expanding the Cordillera de Coiba Area of Managed Resources. In partnership with Skylight, MigraMar, and WildAid Marine, the Blue Nature Alliance is committed to complementing this work by supporting the Panamanian Ministry of the Environment on developing and implementing effective strategies for monitoring and enforcing these protections, including new technologies, enabling conditions related to the chain of enforcement and improvement on the detection and prosecution of illegal activities with the MPA.