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Panama maintains a robust environmental narrative, backed by international commitments and an advanced legal framework. However, this rhetoric contrasts with intensifying extractivist and urban development practices that degrade ecosystems, displace communities, and compromise future sustainability. This article analyzes the structural contradiction between the "green" narrative and extractivist practices, highlighting emblematic cases such as metal mining in the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, the Río Indio reservoir project, and urban expansion in the eastern part of Panama Province. It also examines the commitments Panama has made under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention, and the Paris Agreement, as well as the criteria by which the country positions itself as a "green carbon nation." The article concludes that Panamanian environmental policy faces a structural inconsistency between its regulatory framework and the decisions shaping its development model.
