Assignment: Panama’s water fights

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2024

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

Panama is one of the wettest countries in the world. It also has a world famous shipping canal which earns it billions of dollars a year. With big money and high rainfall combined, it should be straightforward to meet the water needs of its four million plus people.

But hundreds of thousands of Panamanians don’t have access to piped water. With a growing population and a drought, last year the Canal Authority reduced the number of ships passing through by a third, losing it and the country hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

The Authority says this was done to protect drinking water for the 2.5 million people who rely on the same water supply the Canal uses to work its massive locks. With uncertainty over the impact of climate change, Panamanians are asking whether there’ll be enough fresh water to satisfy the enormous demand from the canal’s locks with the basic need to have regular access to clean water.

Jane Chambers travels to Panama to meet the people involved in the struggles for access to water.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this podcast from the BBC.
0:03.4	I'm Jane Chambers and in this edition of assignment
0:06.4	I'm in Panama where the canal and an increasing population
0:10.1	are both demanding their share of a finite resource, water.
0:17.0	Panama is one of the wettest countries in the world.
0:20.4	Every year in April the rains begin and they generally don't stop until the end of November.
0:26.0	Often that means torrential downpours like the one I'm sheltering from at the moment.
0:31.0	With many parts of the world suffering droughts,
0:35.0	you think this would be good news for people who want a regular water
0:38.0	supply, but in Panama, things are not that simple.
0:42.0	We're in a small shop with Leonardo.
0:44.0	You can probably hear the rain beating down on the roof
0:48.0	and they sell things like juice and bread
0:51.0	and there's a fridge with cans of soft drinks in it but before Leonardo had
0:56.3	another business. Well I have to stop selling chicken and poor because I didn't have enough water.
1:04.3	Without it, I can sell meat because good hygiene requires you to have water.
1:09.0	So I have to close down the business.
1:11.2	ironic, isn't it? Leonardo's community is last yester de tokelman. the Tokumen International Airport, the main airport for Panama City, a big regional transport hub, is just down the road,
1:26.8	so regular safe water supply is very near at hand.
1:30.0	But Lee and others not getting a share of it. What's the issue with water?
1:34.4	Because we can hear the rain pelting down
1:37.4	and yet you don't have access to water for your business.
	...

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