Tree Guardians of Cerro Hoya: Restoring Macaw Forests in Panama

Ara Panama Sanctuary: Restoring Forests for Macaws, Wildlife and Communities

Panama Wildlife Conservation protects wildlife and forests in one of the world’s most biodiverse countries. In Panama’s Azuero Peninsula, decades of deforestation, cattle expansion and forest fragmentation have left threatened species such as the Great Green Macaw with fewer feeding and nesting trees. Remaining forest patches are increasingly isolated, while degraded pastures separate rural communities from the biodiversity that once surrounded them.

Our project, Ara Panama, is restoring this landscape tree by tree, farm by farm and community by community. We work around the Cerro Hoya landscape and the Azuero Massif, one of the most important remaining forest refuges in the region. This area still holds rare wildlife, including the Critically Endangered Great Green Macaw, the Azuero Parakeet and the Glow-throated Hummingbird. But without urgent restoration and local stewardship, these species will continue to lose the habitat they need to survive.

Our solution is practical, local and long-term. We work directly with landowners, schools, women, young people and rural families to plant and care for native trees that provide food, shelter, future nesting resources and ecological corridors for wildlife. This is not mass planting and forgetting. Each participant is responsible for a small number of trees, usually fewer than 10, so they know them, care for them and report how they are growing. This creates real ownership and helps turn degraded land into living habitat again.

To date, PWC and local partners have planted more than 6,000 native trees across approximately 25 hectares in Azuero. In our largest monitored reforestation site, we recorded a 60% tree survival rate, and this monitoring now guides maintenance, replacement planting and follow-up visits. Through Ara Panama, we have also identified, monitored and helped protect six rare Great Green Macaw nests. During the past year, seven young macaws successfully fledged from monitored nests. With fewer than 50 adult wild Great Green Macaws estimated to remain in Azuero, every nest, tree and community partner matters.

Our work also grows through education. PWC has delivered more than 30 environmental education workshops, 10 community workshops and 3 Macaw Festivals, reaching over 1,000 students and community members. This year, our education work inspired a local school to begin preparing more than 14,000 additional native trees for future macaw habitat restoration, with support from Panama’s Ministry of Environment. This shows that restoration is becoming part of local identity, not just an external conservation project.

Funds raised through Ma Earth will help us overcome one of our biggest challenges: follow-up capacity. Planting trees is only the beginning. Young trees need transport, nursery support, maintenance, monitoring, replacement planting and regular visits to the families and schools caring for them. Your support will help us provide seedlings, nursery materials, field transport, simple monitoring tools and community follow-up visits. It will allow us to include more families, schools and landowners in a growing network of local “tree guardians.”

We are also expanding Ara Panama Sanctuary through two landscape-scale restoration and conservation initiatives uploaded to Restor. These include work on degraded agricultural areas around Cerro Hoya and a private conservation initiative focused on a 1,400-hectare block of nine private farms in the Azuero Massif. Together, these efforts will help restore ecological corridors, support bird-friendly silvopastoral systems, strengthen participatory monitoring and create long-term private conservation agreements.

We track impact through both science and community participation. Our monitoring includes tree records, GPS locations, photo documentation, survival checks, maintenance history, nest monitoring, camera traps, and community reports. We combine this data with the lived knowledge of local people, because successful restoration depends on both ecological evidence and community trust.

After more than a decade working alongside communities in Azuero, PWC has built the relationships needed to make restoration last. Ara Panama Sanctuary is a chance to protect one of Panama’s most threatened wildlife landscapes while creating pride, skills and opportunities for the people who live there.

By supporting this project, you are helping rural communities restore native forest, reconnect fragmented habitat and give the Great Green Macaw a future in Panama’s skies.