The ocean begins long before it reaches the sea; it begins in the rivers that flow into it, in the wetlands that filter the water, and in the mangroves that grow right in that extraordinary territory where land and sea meet.

During September, Panama commemorates the Oceans Month. This is an opportunity to remember something we often forget: we live on a planet deeply connected by water and our lives depend on the health of its ecosystems.

The oceans cover more than 70% of the planet’s surface, help regulate the climate, produce much of the oxygen we breathe, and support an extraordinary diversity of life.

For generations we have acted as if they were an inexhaustible source of resources. As if everything could be extracted, as if everything could receive our waste, as if they had no limits.

The ocean is much more than water

Our oceans are a source of life, food and well-being for millions of people coastal communities, fishermen, local economies, and entire ecosystems depend on them.

Therefore, protecting them does not only mean reducing the amount of plastic that reaches the sea or creating marine protected areas; it means understanding the connections that allow the ocean to remain alive.

The reefs, the seagrass beds, the rivers, the wetlands and the mangroves are part of the same system. Because what happens in one of them can end up affecting all the others. In Panama, this connection exists and can be observed in an extraordinary way; it’s called the David Mangroves.

David Mangroves, where the land protects the ocean

In Chiriquí, the David Mangroves form one of Panama’s most valuable coastal ecosystems. Here, the forest and the ocean practically speak the same language.

Mangroves filter water, retain sediments, store carbon, protect coasts, and serve as natural nurseries for fish, crustaceans, and other species that later inhabit marine environments.

There is also a significant population of bottlenose dolphins in Bahía de Los Muertos and Punta Boca Brava. An investigation conducted in the area identified 209 individuals and found that the 65% of the sightings corresponded to feeding activities, showing the importance of this estuary as a foraging area.

Protecting these mangroves, therefore, does not just mean protecting a forest; it means protecting the ocean from its roots.

Even an ocean needs boundaries.

But the David Mangroves could face the potential transformation of their environment due to the project Puerto Barú. The ocean needs boundaries. For too long we have understood nature by what it gives us, but there is another way to relate to it. It is important to stop considering nature solely as property or a resource and begin to recognize its right to…to exist, persist, and regenerate their life cycles.

If a company can have legal personality and representation before the courts, then this legal protection should also extend to rivers, forests, or oceans that make all human and economic activity possible.

Recognizing the rights of nature means understanding that protecting an ecosystem should not depend solely on the economic value we can assign to it.

This Oceans Month recognizes that…

Caring for our seas also means protecting the rivers that flow into them, the mangroves that embrace their coasts, the species that depend on their waters, and the communities that have built their lives by the sea.

This Oceans Month in Panama is an opportunity to look beyond the horizon and understand that everything is connected.Because defending the mangroves is also defending the ocean.

#DefendTheMangroves