Hundreds of farmers protested on Friday on a river, aboard boats, to oppose the construction of a reservoir for the Panama Canal that would force many families to relocate. In about thirty motorized canoes, some 400 farmers traveled along the Indio River, whose waters would be dammed into an artificial lake to guarantee freshwater for the inter-oceanic canal.
“We don’t want them to take the river’s water; we need that water,” 48-year-old farmer Ariel Troya. “If the project goes ahead, it takes away our entire future,” Troya added. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) decided to build the reservoir to prevent the effects of severe droughts like the one in 2023, which forced a drastic reduction in ship traffic.
The project would require about 2,500 people to leave their homes—which would end up underwater with the reservoir—a few kilometers west of the canal, according to the ACP. The demonstrators, including children, navigated the river to its mouth on the Caribbean Sea. Canoes are an everyday means of transport in Panama’s rural and jungle regions.
Waving Panamanian flags, the farmers chanted “The people united will never be defeated” and “The Indio River is not for sale; the Indio River is to be defended.” The reservoir will cover 4,600 hectares. From there, water will be carried through a nine-kilometer tunnel to Lake Gatún in the canal basin.
Construction is slated to begin in early 2027 and finish in 2032, with an investment of $1.6 billion. Of that, $400 million is earmarked to compensate and resettle the families whose homes will be submerged. Even so, the farmers refuse to leave the land and houses where they have lived all their lives.
This project is a “threat to all the farmers,” said 54-year-old farmer Amado Valdés. “The river is our life,” declared 54-year-old teacher Zoraya Luján.
