‘The 50 mile canal used mainly by the US, Japan, China and Chile, handles nearly 5% of global trade.’

Holly Bruford visits the Panama Canal to find that in our rapidly expanding world of globalisation it appears that big is never big enough.

To stand on the edge of the Panama Canal and watch the colossal ships raised and lowered more than 16 metres between sea level and Lake Miraflores is a truly phenomenal experience.

It took ten years to build, the labour of more than 75,000 men and women, and almost $4,000 million to complete the job. Tropical disease, the complexity of the massive volume of excavation needed and constant landslides were only a few of the difficulties they had to overcome.

Today the waterway, which was controlled by the US until 1999, is handling more vessel traffic than had ever been envisioned by its builders. Originally estimated that 80 million tons per year would be the maximum capacity of the canal, in 2005 canal traffic consisted of 278.8 million tons of shipping. Ships up to 304 metres long and 33 metres wide can pass through the canal and its network of locks.

In our rapidly expanding world of globalisation, however, it appears that big is never big enough. The 50 mile canal used mainly by the US, Japan, China and Chile, handles nearly 5% of global trade. But with modern ships now being built too wide to go through and operation and maintenance costs at a record high, the canal is facing competition in more profitable and faster growing market segments.

Expansion

The answer, inevitably, would seem to be expansion. This summer the Panamanian congress approved a five billion dollar plan to widen the canal. New locks proposed would be 50 metres wide and a third lane would be built to handle wider loads.

It is believed that an expanded canal would benefit world trade and help maximise Panama’s strategic location as the great maritime hub of the Americas. Whether or not it would benefit the people of Panama is more controversial.

The indigenous peoples who live in the canal’s watershed live a marginalized life of subsistence farming, clearing land for agriculture and depending on wood for construction and cooking.

The authorities claim it is this deforestation that is having a direct affect on the efficiency of the canal. The canal relies on the water collected in the rainforest stretching to the east and the west of it. Those resources are diminished with each acre of jungle that is cut down. In addition, silt is more easily eroded from the area around the canal’s lake and collects at the bottom, reducing capacity.

Mr Aleman, director of the Panama Canal, claims the proposed expansion has an interest in giving the farmers incentives to take care of their land and slow down the rate of deforestation. But for the farmers, expansion means turning the watershed into water and forcing them off their land.

There is an argument that a renovation of the canal would be good for Panama, and therefore good for its people. To stimulate an economy that has sharply slowed in recent years will bring thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of investment. Panama’s president, Martin Torrijos, has called the expansion of the canal the country’s ‘most important decision of the century’.

Indigenous communities

But the indigenous communities of the canals watershed did not reap any benefits brought by the canal the first time round, so why should they expect any changes this time? Where they should see schools, roads and hospitals being planned for the future, instead they see expanding lakes and waterways.

At least this time the people can have their say. This month a national referendum will be held in which the citizens of Panama will vote to approve expansion or not.

Opinion polls are showing that voters are in favour of the plan – after all the indigenous communities make up only 5% of the population. But with critics saying the complete project will still not meet future shipping needs, it does cause one to wonder if big will ever be big enough.

• Holly's earlier article on Panama

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