Panama’s First Harvest of ‘Mangrove Honey’ is Collected in Paris and Santa Ana

2026-03-22 - 15:34

Off the coast of the small towns of Paris and Santa Ana, in central Panama, the community collected this week the first liters of honey harvested within the mangrove, an ecosystem made up of the mangrove tree under the constant threat of the climate crisis. “This will represent a very important milestone for these coastal communities linked to the project, because it demonstrates the tangible results of the work we have done together with these producers and community organizations,” Ruth del Cid, principal researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Innovation of Panama (Idiap), told reporters. The honey grown within the mangrove is part of the project ‘Sustainable development of coastal communities through climate-smart beekeeping in mangrove ecosystems’, between Idiap and the National University of Tumbes (Peru), with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (Aecid). This aims to provide sustainable economic alternatives to coastal communities in both Panama and Peru, while also halting the degradation of mangroves, a crucial ecosystem for tackling the climate crisis, although it is increasingly threatened by its consequences. These days they expect to have collected, pending the final count, approximately 22.7 liters of honey (6 gallons, which is the average production in the country) per hive, where up to 80,000 bees live, to give workshops on making the product to the neighborhood groups that are part of that project. Potential of Beekeeping “We are not only going to show how honey is bottled, what the biosecurity practices are for doing it, but we are also going to be able to strengthen the capacities in the production of their hive products” such as creams, flavored honeys, soaps or candles, explained del Cid. The collection will also allow us to “show in a very practical way what the productive potential of beekeeping is in these mangrove systems and how this will contribute to strengthening these local livelihoods,” the researcher explained. The hives have sensors inside to record variables such as temperature and humidity, since the bees live comfortably in the white mangrove (Laguncularia racemosa) and the buttonwood (Conocarpus erectus), because there are melliferous plants that produce nectar. Panama is the country with the most mangroves in Central America with approximately 170,000 hectares of these ecosystems on its two coasts, with twelve different species out of a total of more than 60 known in the American continent.