Indigenous livelihoods, slash-and-burn agriculture, and carbon stocks in Eastern Panama

Improved crop–fallow systems in the humid tropics can simultaneously sequester atmospheric carbon emissions and contribute to sustainable livelihoods of rural populations. A study with an indigenous community in eastern Panama revealed a considerable biophysical potential for carbon offsets in small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture through longer fallow periods, improved fallow management, secondary forest development, and agricultural intensification. Based on soil and biomass carbon measurements, estimated annual sequestration rates amount to 0.3−3.7 t C ha^− 1 yr^− 1. Despite such potential, the economic benefits of initiatives aimed at sequestration of carbon in the community are likely to be rather unequally distributed within the community. Heterogeneity in livelihood strategies and uneven asset endowments among households – factors often overlooked in the ongoing carbon and sustainable development debate – are expected to strongly affect household participation. Indeed, only the better-endowed households that have also managed to diversify into more lucrative farm and non-farm activities are likely to be able to participate in and thus benefit from improved crop–fallow systems that capture carbon. Economic, ethical, institutional, and technical concerns need to be taken into account when designing community carbon management and investment plans.     

Planning for competitive port expansion on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard: the case of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project

With the expansion of the Panama Canal, port cities along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard are competing to attract the increased trade expected once the project is complete in 2015. Competition includes extensive investment in projects for port expansion, dredging, and multimodal transportation for greater hinterland connectivity, fueled in part by uncoordinated federal port investments without a larger strategic vision for national port and trade infrastructure. One of the competing ports is in Savannah, Georgia, which is the country’s fourth busiest container port. Savannah is about to embark on a $652 million project that will dredge thirty-two miles of the Savannah River from 42 to 47 feet to attract and accommodate Post-Panamax container ships. The paper analyzes the geographic coastal impacts of port competition, and looks at the unique circumstances of the Greater Savannah Metropolitan Region in planning for future growth of its port. The case illustrates the geographic tensions of uncoordinated maritime freight and logistics planning with fragile coastal and riparian ecologies. The dramatic interventions in port excavation also demonstrate how global forces of technological change and port expansions in other parts of the world are reshaping local geographies.     

A protectionist foodgrain price policy : The case of rice in Panama

Panama has pursued a protectionist price policy for rice, with domestic prices well above the world market level. The government marketing authority purchases sufficient rice to support the established price level and stores or exports the surplus. Although producers benefit, this policy imposes significant costs on consumers, government expenditures and economic efficiency. One policy recommendation is to bring domestic prices in line with the international level. Although free trade is one possibility, a market stabilization programme could be retained. At a minimum Panama's rice price should reflect domestic demand and not production costs. The unfavourable rice-fertilizer price ratio also deserves attention.     

The Violence of Abstract Space: Contested Regional Developments in Southern Mexico

The article proposes a reinterpretation of Henri Lefebvre's concept of abstract space, emphasizing the significance of the ‘violence of abstraction’ within the concept itself, and within the concrete process of the capitalist production of space. This interpretation of abstract space is developed through the case of the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) as an ‘actually existing’ abstract space. Launched in 2001 and abandoned in 2008, the PPP was a regional development programme for southern Mexico and Central America, which aimed to transform this region from a peripheral zone of peasant agriculture and social unrest into a modernized node of the global economy through the construction of infrastructure networks and the restructuring of economic activity. Focusing on southern Mexico, I explore the symbolic, structural and direct forms of violence embodied in the PPP: its abstraction from the lived spaces of the region; its incorporation of the region into global circuits of capital; and its repression of a network of place‐based resistances.     

Evaluating drivers of profitability for airlines in Latin America: A case study of Copa Airlines

Air Traffic demand in Latin America is expected to double over the next twenty years, yet airline profitability in the region remains highly problematic. The impediments challenging financial prosperity in the continent are numerous and have resulted in prolonged loss-making periods across most Latin American carriers. Breaking with this trend, Copa Airlines has been able to report double-digit net results for several years and recorded 56% of total profits earned by all Latin American carriers in 2016. This research has identified a number of Key Performance Indicators that have underpinned Copa Airlines' financial prosperity through a Product and Organisational Architecture (POA) framework analysis whose results were validated and elaborated upon by the CEO of Copa Airlines. Copa's sustained financial success was attributable to a number of factors. First, its geographical positioning has allowed it to engineer strong connectivity by coupling North and South America through its hub, which is reachable with narrowbodies to nearly all points in the Americas. Second, its low unit cost structure is akin to that of LCCs, operating a single aircraft type with high utilisation. Third, it has a uniquely low market concentration of competitors on its routes and capitalises on this by having a strong schedule with high frequencies together with outstanding punctuality. Fourth, it has a synergistic and fruitful cooperation with its hub airport at Tocumen. Finally it benefits from positive external factors such as a dollarized home economy with high GDP growth, exceptionally low unemployment and inflation rates ring-fenced with security. These pillars can be used as a reference for other Latin based airlines seeking to improve profitability.     

The fate of the tropical forest: Carbon or cattle?

Small-scale afforestation/reforestation projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol will sequester atmospheric carbon and facilitate carbon trading but they face significant implementation challenges among the rural poor households and communities that are meant to adopt and benefit from them. Avoiding deforestation - a controversial carbon reduction option now under climate policy discussion - shows promise though for both forest conservation and poverty alleviation among indigenous forest peoples.     

The Nicaragua Canal: scenarios of its future roles

Connections between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are vital for international trade. Since 1914, the Panama Canal has provided ships with a direct interoceanic canal for crossing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The geographical advantage of the Panama Canal allows it to enjoy an exclusive position in international seaborne trade. Passage demand through the canal has increased continuously since its opening, with about 12,000 vessels travelling through it in 2013. However, the Panama Canal’s monopoly in interoceanic canal operations may soon come to an end. In 2012, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Nicaraguan Government and a Chinese investor to construct the Nicaragua Canal, which will be built about 400 nautical miles from the Panama Canal. It is expected that the Nicaragua Canal will be operational by 2020. The proposed canal will not only provide an alternative route for vessels to pass between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but will also trigger dynamic changes in seaborne trade patterns. To assess the long-term benefits of the proposed canal, we use a scenario planning method in this study to provide a framework for constructing several scenarios for 2030, 10 years after the anticipated construction of the canal. To develop the scenarios, we consider three macroscale drivers, namely politics, economics, and environment, and the causal relationships between them. Combinations of pairs of drivers are used to generate dominant scenarios to anticipate the role of the Nicaragua Canal with respect to future international trade. The analysis presented in this study will provide transport geographers and other major stakeholders with alternative mindsets into the future spatial changes in and development of maritime transport.     

Ethical Decision Making: Panama–United States Differences in Consumer and Marketing Contexts

ABSTRACT

Results show that significant differences, both statistical and practical, exist between Panamanians and U.S. nationals in how they intend to behave in various consumption-related and marketing-related ethical situations. As cross-national marketing increases, the need to understand marketing and consumer ethics across countries becomes more critical. Additionally, as Robertson, Brady, and Hoffman (2001) Robertson, C. J., Brady, M. K. and Hoffman, J. J. 2001. Moral and marketing differences between the United States and Ecuador. International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, 4(1–2): 75–98.  [Google Scholar] point out, there has been a genuine lack of emphasis in the marketing-related ethics literature in Latin America. This study partially addresses that need by examining and contrasting the intended behaviors in ethical situations of Panamanians and Americans as consumers and marketers. The study contributes to marketing ethics knowledge on several fronts: (i) increasing understanding of ethics of Panamanians in consumer and marketing contexts, (ii) adding to the extant cross-country literature in the area of ethical decision making by consumers, and (iii) incorporating effect sizes, which is very rarely reported, to complement the significance values. Results show that significant differences exist between Panamanians and U.S. nationals in how they intend to behave in various consumption-related and marketing-related ethical situations. Managerial implications are also discussed.