Facilitate the conservation, protection, restoration and sustainable use and management of the tropical forests of the Chagres National Park and its buffer zone, including up to 5 kilometers in the adjacent areas to the boundaries of the Park, which provide a wide range of benefits to humanity.
The environmental initiatives that are financed with the resources of this Environmental Fund are framed within the strategic lines of the Strategic Plan 2010-2016 approved by the fund's Vigilance Committee:
The Debt for Nature Swap for the Conservation of Chagres National Park (Chagres Fund) is a national environmental fund created through the Forest Conservation Agreement, signed in 2003 between the Government of the Republic of Panama, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Government of the United States of America.
The resources of the Chagres Fund come from Panama's first Debt-for-Nature Swap, formalized on July 10, 2003, for a value of 10 million dollars. Through it, the Panamanian external debt for this value was paid by the Government of the United States of America, with contributions from the TNC, within the framework of the Tropical Forest Conservation Law (TFCA), of the United States of July 29, 1998, with its amendment No. 105-214, approved by the Congress of the United States of America.
The Fund's resources are destined to attend community environmental initiatives within and in the buffer zone of the National Park, with an aim to mitigate the main identified threats on the site, through donations to non-profit organizations of civil society, as established in the Forest Agreement and approved by the Fund's Vigilance Committee
