Panama displaces 2,000 farmers for Canal

Panamanian authorities are creating a water reservoir to bolster the parched Panama Canal despite opposition from environmentalists. Critics say the project would displace 2,000 mostly-poor farmers, who would also lose the land they depend on.

However proponents argue the affected communities would be compensated, and insist the project is indispensable to securing the future of the Canal, through which the number of crossings has plummeted amid a historic drought, and which generates a large share of Panama’s GDP.
“The past 20 years have been totally different than from the previous 80 years… because climate change has, in crescendo, had an impact that’s much different,” a Canal official told The New York Times.