WPT-NECF-funded Panama Wildlife Conservation (PWCC) is dedicated to conserving biodiversity, animal species and their habitats, through collaboration with residents and organisations in Panama. PWCC has been working to protect Great Green Macaw (Ara ambiguus) habitat and help bolster their numbers. Their science-based work takes them to Cerro Hoya National Park (CHNP), located on the Azuero Peninsula in the country’s south. This area and its buffer zones have been subject to the most severe habitat degradation in the country through agriculture and drought. Conservation efforts include planting native plants and trees important to the macaws, monitoring the wild population, learning about their ecology and threats to their survival, carrying out education and outreach programs, promoting ecotourism, encouraging the protection of roosting and breeding habitat and producing educational materials about the macaws.

Thus far, the PWCC team has identified four nesting sites within the CHNP and a flock of over a dozen individuals on the park’s western edge, with more reported on the eastern side. These sightings bring hope for the populations of this area.