Potential Darien Gap Road Threatens "Motherload of Biodiversity"
11/30/97
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
Cable News Network reports on the continuously looming threat to the
forests of the Darien Gap, where the forests of Central and South
America meet. This center of biodiversity lies in the path of the
last unfinished portion of the Pan-American highway.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Pan-American Highway's missing link, Controversy surrounds
effort to extend road
Source: Cable News Network
Status: Copyrighted, contact source for reprint permissions
Date: November 25, 1997
Byline: Gary Strieker
The Darien Gap is said to contain a "motherload of biodiversity."
DARIEN GAP, Panama (CNN) -- Here, where Central and South America come
together, lies a rain forest containing one of the richest ecological
regions on Earth. It's also an obstacle to the completion of the Pan-
American Highway, more than 16,000 miles of continuous road from
Alaska to the tip of South America.
The only missing link is a 54-mile stretch through two national parks
-- one in Panama, the other in Colombia -- that contain the Darien
Gap's more than 3 million acres of unspoiled wilderness.
The region is a "motherlode of biodiversity ... (and) ... one of the
most important tracts of forest remaining in the Americas," says
Hernan Arauz of ANCON, a private, non-profit organization dedicated to
the conservation of Panama's natural resources.
Road completion debated
Supporters of the highway cite both symbolic and economic reasons for
completing it. It's outrageous, they say, that at the dawn of the 21st
century the Americas are still not united because of a few miles of
missing road.
But it's an argument ANCON opposes. "We don't need this road," says
Juan Carlos Navarro, another member of the group. "We don't want it,
and we will never have it."
Completing the Pan-American highway here, say conservationists, would
attract thousands of poor immigrants looking for land and guarantee
annihilation of the remaining forest. Leaders of indigenous Indian
tribes in the gap fear the influx of immigrants would destroy them
economically and culturally.
Conservationists also point to the nearest stretch of the highway,
already completed as far as Yaviza, Panama. The area, heavily forested
only 20 years ago, is now mostly stripped of timber for miles on both
sides of the highway.
Many local farmers seem unconcerned by the controversy, saying they
just want the existing road improved so they can use it in the rainy
season to get their produce to market.
Panama's government in no rush
Latin American diplomats have called for completing the highway, but
Panama's government, concerned about political and drug-related
violence moving north from Colombia, seems to have given the project a
low priority.
In fact, many Panamanians are comforted by having the Darien Gap as a
buffer zone on the Colombian border.
Other factors working in favor of highway opponents:
* Many Panamanians are comforted by having the Darien Gap as a buffer
zone on the Colombian border.
* There's no money for building the road anytime soon, and the United
States is no longer interested in financing it.
* Good travel alternatives, especially coastal shipping.
"The people who still talk about a highway between Panama and Colombia
were passed by history ... They're dinosaurs," Navarro says.
So the Pan-American Highway may remain incomplete for some time to
come.