WCS Is “Paving” the Way for Jaguars June 12, 2006 A thoroughfare
that’s healthy for wildlife? For a change, a conduit through the
forests of Central America won’t trigger new development or
increase greenhouse gases. Instead, conservationists hope, the
only thing it will pave the way for is more pawprints. A group
of environment ministers representing the seven nations of
Central America and Mexico have agreed to establish a network of
protected areas and wildlife corridors to safeguard jaguar
populations. The decision was made at the Second Mesoamerica
Protected Area Congress recently held in Panama. A Central
American corridor for jaguars is not a new idea. In 1990, the
Wildlife Conservation Society launched a project called the
Paseo Pantera (Spanish for “path of the panther”), a network of
protected areas and wildlife corridors that became known as the
Mesoamerica Biological Corridor (CBM) in 1997. The CBM aimed to
balance human needs, sustainable development, and the
conservation of some of the Earth’s g