METETÍ, Panama — Darién National Park covers around 575,000 hectares, or 1.42 million acres, of rainforest at Panama’s southern border with Colombia, where Central and South America meet. It’s one of the most biodiverse rainforests in the region and a vital stopgap for diseases that might otherwise spread between the two continents, experts say.

In recent years, the area has received global attention as a migrant crossing route, with thousands of people from Colombia, Venezuela and other parts of the region making the dangerous journey through the remote jungle each day to reach the U.S.

Migrants have left thousands of tons of waste in the rainforest that officials don’t have a cost-effective way to remove. Meanwhile, criminal groups continue to set up mining camps that pollute the Chucunaque River watershed, among others. From outside, cattle ranchers and farmers are pushing ever closer to the park as new road development opens up access to once remote areas.

Officials working in the area say they have more support from the government to tackle these problems than they have in years. President José Mulino, who took office last July, has increased the budget and assigned conservationist Juan Carlos Navarro to head the Ministry of Environment.

Earlier this year, Mongabay’s Max Radwin met with 30 new Darién National Park rangers, who were training to use new equipment from the NGO Global Conservation. Mongabay also shadowed Luis Carles Rudy, Panama’s national director of protected areas, as he checked in on the issues in and around the park.

In an interview, Carles Rudy expressed excitement about the new rangers and had a lot to say about what the government is doing to stop mining, logging and agribusiness. The following interview has been translated from Spanish and lightly edited for length and clarity.

Mongabay: Tell readers about the ranger training you attended this week and why it’s important for the future of the park.

Luis Carles Rudy: As of April, Darién National Park has 30 new park rangers, joining the [nearly] 30 that are already employed as part of the active park ranger force of the National System of Protected Areas. Through an agreement we signed with the Ministry of Environment, [our collaboration with Global Conservation] will provide equipment that ranger patrol programs carry out monitoring. It’s a very useful tool for us, as it locates in real time the patrols and work areas that our park rangers carry out in different parts of Darién National Park.

Mongabay: Did you feel that Darién National Park, or maybe the national park system in general, was lacking those resources before?

Luis Carles Rudy: There has been an abandonment of some protected areas, which has been noticeable for more than 15 years. The parks didn’t have directors. They didn’t have park rangers. Under the new Mulino government, and with Minister of Environment Juan Carlos Navarro, who knows environmental issues very well, we have new momentum in the parks.

The first thing we did was to evaluate the situation of the 121 protected areas in the country, of which 18 are very important national parks. This includes Darién National Park, one of the largest parks in Central America and one of the largest in Panama.

First, we focused on organizing the logistics, improving park ranger headquarters; second, providing them with continuous food supplies; third, equipping them with gear, tools and offices. This allows us to carry out more effective management to care for the park, both at its boundaries and in deep Darién, which has many problems with illegal logging, drug trafficking, illegal mining and hunting. It’s one of our objectives that, with this new force and these technologies, we can stop those incursions inside the park. We dismantled six illegal mining camps on the Mangle River, very close to the Colombian border, and we have fires under control. We haven’t had any forest fires incidents in 2025 due to these continuous patrols and the technology we’re using.

Mongabay: Cattle ranching is a big concern in Darién province. It’s not present in the park yet, but you told the new park guards that it could be a problem in years to come. 

Luis Carles Rudy: Within Darién National Park there is no cattle ranching. That’s an issue we’ve kept under control. But there is a real threat that the new road infrastructure being developed, which includes a bridge that will cross the Tuira River and another the Chucunaque River, will bring the roads used by agribusiness closer to the park boundaries. This is an issue we’re still analyzing, and part of this entire strategy of having more park rangers is precisely to best position ourselves before these roads open in two or three years. To have control over the boundaries and buffer zones of the parks.

Controlling the advance of cattle ranching into forested areas is an important issue for the Ministry of Environment. There’s a national forestry agency, and also the Ministry of Agricultural Development, which must establish and enforce the appropriate regulations for this type of activity. On the other hand, the pressure from cattle ranchers is very strong. It’s a group with a lot of economic power and it’s definitely one of the main threats the park faces. But for now, there is no cattle ranching inside Darién National Park.

Protected and forested areas, both inside and outside the park, must be maintained as such, since within the park there are 23 important rivers that are critical for supplying water to the communities living downstream. So it is a team effort that we have to strengthen.

Mongabay: It sounds like new infrastructure poses its own threat, since it makes it easier for agribusiness to reach remote areas. But at the same time, communities need to be connected to the rest of the country, don’t they?

Luis Carles Rudy: The bridges themselves might be OK, but with bridges come more roads, more development. The problem is the rivers, the problem of the Chucunaque River, which used to limit entry into the park by car. It somewhat limited the technology for extraction and the expansion of the agricultural frontier. By building bridges over the Tuira River and the Chucunaque River, a window opens up. A lot of land that isn’t inside the park will feel a lot of pressure from cattle ranchers who also have a lot of capital. There are also issues with drug traffickers buying land. We have to prepare ourselves.

One of the alternatives is to begin buying land through organizations at the boundaries of the parks to protect and limit cattle ranchers or other groups from buying them for deforestation purposes.

Mongabay: You mean private groups would buy the land and then donate it to the park, thereby expanding its boundaries?

Luis Carles Rudy: There are good experiences with that. You could go to the Rancho Frío station in Pirre, where they acquired 350 hectares [864 acres]. Thirty years ago, the Ancón Foundation bought them, and today they are fully regenerated primary forests because there was a lot of seed dispersal in the park. Those 350 hectares at the edge of Darién National Park toward the Rancho Frío station have shown that it works because there is forest on private property, a foundation, and around it is nothing but cattle ranching. So the idea of finding and purchasing land in the buffer zone to protect it and support the environment is a very viable proposal. It’s not about expanding the park, but about annexing forested areas in the park’s buffer zone. This proposal seems very important and very interesting to us, and we’re very happy that conservation groups like Global Conservation are thinking about pursuing it.

Mongabay: I understand that there isn’t that much logging in the park itself, but logging does happen within the communities that occupy the park. Can you explain that subtle difference and what you’re doing to keep the logging industry under control?

Luis Carles Rudy: Within Darién National Park, there is no illegal logging. What happens inside Darién National Park is that there are 23 or 24 communities, and they need to use wood products. Personal permits are given for using trees for building personal homes, not for commercial use. Any product that comes out of the park without a permit is confiscated at our checkpoints outside the park. The Forestry Directorate is regulating timber use within the Indigenous territories.

The only way to harvest wood is by having management plans. The management plans are approved by the Forestry Directorate of the Ministry of Environment. These permits allow the wood to leave the park, and they must have transport guides. In fact, at this moment we have two sawmills here in Darién that closed, precisely because of the purchase of illegal wood that came from Indigenous territories. In terms of commercial extraction inside the park, it doesn’t exist. We have that under control. Permission is only given within the park for personal use for housing, and only some species of wood. Generally, these are trees that have fallen, usually due to wind.

Mongabay: Illegal mining continues to be a problem in the park. What are officials doing to stop it?

Luis Carles Rudy: Mining is totally destructive because it uses pressure pumps that remove the soil, and it definitely causes tree loss, but for the first time we have controlled that in the park. The Mangle River area, which was the most common area for illegal mining, now has an advanced outpost for the State Border Service [SENAFRONT], the police organization that guards our borders. We have an excellent relationship with them. Right now, we have a permanent advanced outpost on the Mangle River to try to prevent mining from returning to that area.

Darién is so immense that we’re approaching it piece by piece. [The Mangle River] was our main area where illegal mining happened, so we did intelligence work that lasted almost four months; all was done with the police, the Ministry of Environment, and the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office, and an operation was carried out that detected very destructive illegal mining. Arrests were made. There are already lawsuits before the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office.

But that doesn’t mean that illegal mining isn’t happening in other areas of the park. As a strategy, we’re going piece by piece. At this moment, thanks to the SENAFRONT and Ministry of Environment outpost, we have totally controlled the Mangle River area at the border with Colombia near the Caribbean,. But we have to continue with our intelligence work and verify where else mining is affecting the watersheds.

Mongabay: People still think of the area as a migrant route, but that’s not really the case anymore, is it?

Luis Carles Rudy: Migration had an impact on the areas outside of Darién National Park, because migration happens in the protected area of Alto Darién, where the Indigenous territories are. Coincidentally, yesterday we were around the area of Yape and Unión Chocó. Migration was heading toward that area. The Mulino government ordered the closure of the routes, leaving only organized routes. The routes are under control. Migration through Darién has decreased by around 90% because restrictions have been put in place, because many of the routes were managed by drug cartels. There used to be 50,000 to 60,000 people per month. Now there are possibly 1,500 to 2,000 people arriving, but directed through routes where migrants are authorized to arrive.

Mongabay: And with the migrants came the trash problem?

Luis Carles Rudy: The problem is that there’s a lot of garbage and waste not in the park, but very close to the park. Officials are still figuring out what to do. On that route, we have estimated there are about 300,000 tons of garbage left over from the last 10 years due to illegal migration, and it’s an issue that must be studied and developed with a lot of technology. The garbage is so immense that it will cost many millions of dollars to remove it. It must be done with specialized companies, given that there are no roads or adequate means of transportation in that area to remove so much garbage, much of which was clothing and [plastic] bottles left by migrants. There is deterioration in the forested areas as a result of that garbage. Work is already underway to find a financing mechanism so that we can clean up that area.

It’s not as simple as going in, picking up the trash and carrying it out on your back. No, because these are highly inaccessible areas. You need technology, air support. Trash would need to be collected and incinerated onsite, or compacted mechanically and then removed.. The whole operation might have to be done with helicopters because there’s no ground transportation with trucks or suitable equipment to remove that garbage.

Mongabay: Despite all the challenges faced by the park, it sounds like you’re cautiously optimistic about the future of the area’s rainforests.

Luis Carles Rudy: Since day one, the Mulino government set as one of its main goals the conservation of nature and the protection of national parks as sources of water, natural wealth and biodiversity. Minister Navarro, appointed by President Mulino, has spent his entire life working in the field of conservation and biodiversity. His arrival at the Ministry of Environment has brought a very important level of dynamism.

In 2025, the Ministry of Environment had its largest budget in the last 30 years, to build headquarters and improve facilities at national park stations. There has been a complete shift in just eight months in how protected areas are cared for and safeguarded. This is thanks to Minister Navarro’s deep knowledge and the team he’s assembled, with officials who are fully committed to working for the benefit of conservation throughout the country.

Banner image: Luis Carles Rudy during a training session with new park guards for Darién National Park. Photo by Maxwell Radwin.

See related from this reporter:

A deadly fly is spreading through Central America. Experts blame illegal cattle ranching

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