Chagres Fund

The Fund for the Conservation of the 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 the first Debt for Nature Swap made by Panama, formalized on July 10, 2003, for a value of 10 million dollars. Through it, the Panamanian external debt for said amount was paid by the Government of the United States of America, with contributions from TNC, within the framework of the Tropical Forest Conservation Act (TFCA), of the United States of July 1998, with its amendment No. 105-214, approved by the Congress of the United States of America.

The transaction contemplated a contribution of 1.1 million dollars by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), an international non-governmental organization that supports conservation actions in the Chagres area, and the contribution of 5.6 million dollars from the US government, to purchase a value of 10 million dollars of Panamanian external debt.

The Fund’s resources are intended to address community environmental initiatives within and in the buffer zone of the National Park, with a view to mitigating the main threats identified on the site. through donations to non-profit civil society organizations, as established in the Forest Agreement and approved by the Fund’s Oversight Committee.