Panama to Create an 'Environmental Knowledge' Centre

"We will replace military troops and weapons with students and books," say the founders of the centre, which is to be located on a former U.S. military base.

By Néfer Muñoz

A group of scientists, academics, business executives and civil society leaders have announced an alliance to create Latin America's first-ever institute of information and training for sustainable development.

The International Centre for Sustainable Development will be headquartered in the Ciudad del Saber (City of Knowledge), formerly a U.S. military base that the Panamanian government converted into a research centre in 1999.

The institute, whose creation was announced Thursday in Johannesburg at the World Summit for Sustainable Development, involves more than 40 organisations, among them the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centre (CATIE), and the Inter-American Institute for Agricultural Cooperation (IICA). The project will also have the backing of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

"We depend on ecosystems and we need to understand them," Panamanian biologist Rodrigo Tarte, one the principals supporters of the project, told Tierramérica.

The centre will create databanks on sustainable development and will offer high-level educational programs.

Tarte, who has worked as a scientist in Puerto Rico, the United States, Costa Rica and his birthplace, Panama, is the academic director of the Ciudad del Saber (City of Knowledge), a 120-hectare complex of more than 300 buildings located in the former Clayton military base on the banks of the inter-ocean Panama canal, where the United States maintained the headquarters of the Southern Command.

"We will replace military troops and weapons with students and books," added Tarte, "and we will promote academic, scientific, social and human development there." The City of Knowledge was created in Panama as a private foundation and houses universities, research centres, NGOs and international organisations.

The first phase of work on the International Centre for Sustainable Development will begin in October.

"We are convinced that here in Latin America we must generate our own research, because we have at times imported systems from other regions that were not adaptable to our realities," added Tarte.

The Centre will seek to become a leading institute in the hemisphere in three areas: creation of data banks, research and education.

"This is a great opportunity not only for Panama but for the entire hemisphere," stressed Gonzalo Menéndez, Panama's vice-minister of the environment, in a conversation with Tierramérica.

One of the project's aims is to take advantage of the rich ecosystem that extends along the length of the Panama Canal to develop scientific research and share it with colleagues in the region.

"The Centre will develop very interesting and concrete projects that will facilitate the creation and circulation of knowledge among our countries," added Menéndez.

Founders of the centre are now examining the prospects for hosting a world conference in May or June in 2003 in Panama City on management of ecosystems and sustainable development.