Panama's leadership in the global movement for the Rights of Nature

Panama was fertile ground for the Rights of Nature movement long before it passed a single law. The country has placed nearly one-third of its land and more than half of its ocean territory under conservation, exceeding the international 30 by 30 target, a level of commitment few nations can match. So when the Rights of Nature concept reached Panama's government, it landed with a country already inclined to lead.

A national law with global implications

That concept reached Panama's First Lady and Congressman Juan Diego Vásquez, whose sponsorship carried it through the Panamanian Parliament. It also reached forNature founder Callie Veelenturf, whose sea turtle research in Panama had already put her in the room, and who became one of the partners helping turn the country's existing commitment into enforceable law. The result, passed in 2022, was Law 287: Panama's national Rights of Nature law, and only the third national Rights of Nature legal provision anywhere in the world. It established Nature as a subject with its own legal rights in Panama, rather than treating it solely as property or a resource to be managed for human benefit.

That distinction matters more than it might sound. Law 287 gave Panama an enforceable legal standard, meaning a country could now defend Nature's rights in court, not only through regulation. It proved the Rights of Nature could move from concept to enforceable law, and it gave the wider movement a working national model at a moment when only two other countries had anything comparable.

None of that happened through one office or one office holder. Law 287 was the product of a genuine coalition: lawmakers, government leaders, legal experts, conservation organizations, scientists, Indigenous Peoples, and advocates working together over years to advance the Rights of Nature in Panama. Congressman Vásquez sponsored the bill; Callie Veelenturf helped drive it forward; legal advisors Irma Hernández and Juan Diego Infante and environmental lawyer Luisa Arauz Arredondo shaped the law itself; and Earth Law Center's Constanza Prieto-Figelist and Rachel Bustamante, alongside Michelle Bender of Ocean Vision Legal, brought the legal strategy that made it hold up. Panama's National Air and Naval Service later stood up an Environmental Committee to help implement it.

From principle to a single species

That precedent is what made the next law possible. In 2021, legislator Gabriel Silva introduced what would become Law 371, building on sea turtle research that Callie Veelenturf and The Leatherback Project had already been conducting on Panama's coast. Approved in 2023, Law 371 protects sea turtles and their habitats from bycatch, coastal development, tourism, illegal trade, and climate change all at once, recognizing sea turtles as living beings with the right to exist, move, thrive, and fulfill their ecological roles, rather than as wildlife resources to be managed. Five of the world's seven sea turtle species nest and migrate along Panama's coast, and Law 371 holds its own global distinction: it's the first species-specific Rights of Nature law in the world.

Passing a law that protects one species from five distinct, documented threats is a harder legal test than a general declaration of Nature's rights. Panama's willingness to clear that bar showed other countries what species-level Rights of Nature protection can actually look like in practice, not just in theory, and it drew on the same broad coalition of government, civil society, scientists, and conservation organizations that had already carried Law 287 into law.

Leadership beyond the law

The two laws are the headline, but they aren't the whole picture. Panama also created the Saboga National Wildlife Refuge in the Pearl Islands Archipelago, the first Wildlife Refuge designated in the name of the Rights of Nature, and proposed a biocorridor in the Darién Gap to push back against port development threatening the region. Together with the Environmental Committee inside the Air and Naval Service, these are the parts of the story that don't make headlines but prove the Rights of Nature can move from legal principle to everyday, on-the-ground practice.

Taking that leadership to the world stage

Panama didn't stop at its own borders. On April 10, 2026, forNature signed a memorandum of understanding with Panama's Ministry of the Environment, committing to spend the next several years championing the Rights of Nature at the United Nations. That work now centers on building the forNature Coalition of States, an alliance of countries backing a UN Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature at the General Assembly. It's the same story that started with Law 287, told at a larger scale: a country already inclined to lead, turning that inclination into something the rest of the world can build on.