When Panama’s National Assembly passed a bill last month allowing the president and his ministers to waive environmental-impact studies for development projects, civil society groups reacted with outrage. Protestors faced riot police outside the National Assembly on June 12, as the vote took place. Then on June 17, thousands of the bill’s opponents demonstrated in the streets of Panama City. And environmental groups vowed to take their fight to the Supreme Court, saying that by undercutting impact studies the government was violating its constitutional duty to guarantee a healthy environment. “The government sees these studies as a time-consuming hindrance when in fact they have an enormous bearing on fragile ecosystems and the lives of indigenous and peasant-farmer communities,” says Raisa Banfield, director... [Log in to read more]