2025 Panama _ Climate-Smart Water Nexus
Dr. Dilip Nandwani, Program Manager Sara Mulville and 5 students travel to Panama to learn about circular agriculture and economy in different ecological settings and learn about research-stakeholder for advancing bioeconomy. Our itinerary included impactful visits that gave us a deeper understanding of Panama’s rich biodiversity, innovation in sustainability, and community resilience.
Stakeholder Engagements:
Indigenous Comarca Kuna de Madugandí – We were warmly welcomed into this Indigenous community, where we witnessed how livelihoods are deeply connected to the land through fishing, hunting, plantain, coffee, cacao, rice, fruit, and yucca cultivation. Their relationship with nature offered valuable lessons in sustainability and traditional knowledge.
Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá (UTP) – Main Campus and the Tocumen Campus labs, gaining insights into cutting-edge research, environmental tech, and collaborative opportunities with local students and faculty.
Panama Canal Authority Agency & Coffee Co-op ACACPA – Visit the Sustainability Unit for the Panama Canal that delivers programming for watershed. Visit projects including, ACACPA, the Association of Coffee Producers of the Ciri and Trinidad Rivers Sub-basin. Panama Canal Authority helped open the first coffee processing plant in Las Gaitas, Capira, Panama as part of its Environmental Economic Incentives Program (PIEA), a land-titling programme supporting communities in the Canal watershed.
🌱 Fundación Natura panama & Juan Díaz WWTP Wastewater Treatment Plant – These visits deepened our understanding of environmental stewardship and urban sustainability in action — from reforestation to waste management.
📍 Esri Panamá – We also explored Panama’s rich cultural heritage and saw how geospatial technologies are being applied to development and conservation.
One Health: clean water for development. Training the Next Global One Health Workforce: An Educational OH Pilot Program for Cross-Sectoral Engagement in Darien, Panama.
For the 2023 January Term, students from different disciplines explored the importance of working across multiple industries to address clean water and sanitation. Drs. Jennifer Retherford, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Adam Willcox, research associate professor in the School of Natural Resources, Nan Gaylord, associate dean of practice and global affairs in the College of Nursing, and Sara Mulville, FEWSUS program manager, led a group made up of engineering, agriculture, and nursing students. This trip was funded by the UT one Healdh Group visited Technological University of Panama, University of Panama (Nursing) to meet faculty conducting research in water quality in urban and peri-urban systems. The trip culminated with a visit to Embera-Wounaan indigenous groups in the outskirts of Panama City. Root causes of waterborne illnesses were evaluated within the context of the Emberá-Wounaan comarcas.
