Lake Bayano
Lake Bayano is located 90 km east of the city of Panama. The lake was created in 1976, when the river Bayano was turned into a dam to crate the hidroelectric plant, today it's the second biggest source of energy in Panama. During it's construction, the dam sunk some 350 km2 of forest and forced the Kuna and Emberá indigenous communities to retreat.
In 1996, nearly twenty years later, several Kuna communities founded their own shire (semiautonomous reserve). Known as the Kuna of Madungandí shire, formed by 14 cmunities, this shire borders great part of the lake and it extends north to the Caribbean.
The name Bayano is taken given to the river in memory of the "negro cimarron Bayano", important in the emancipation of his race durin the Spanish Colonization in Panama.
The hidrografic basin of Lake Bayano comprehends 3,771 km2 and 192.2 km2 in areas of fluctuating earth. Average depth of the basin is 13.6 m, with 60 m being the maximum. In this basin fishing for tilapia is used by local indigenous communities a the main source of economy, in adition to the extraction of submerged tree trunks.
In 2010, we began the proccess to adquire the consession of submerged tree trunk extraction in Lake Bayano, it wasn't until late 2013 that the National Enviromental Authorities gave the pertmit for 15 years of extraction.
We generate direct and indirect sources of labor to the habitants of nearby comunities, creating oportunities in the indigenous economy of the shire.
CoastEcoTimber dream is to share the most beautiful woods in the world of eco-conscious way and we have made that dream.