Aerials of Our Panama Site

Here are three aerial photos of our casa de vigilancia ("watch-tower house") and its surroundings. The casa is part of an anti-poaching effort. Poaching is a major threat to wildlife in the rainforests of northwestern Panama, which is where the casa was built. Our builders are members of the Naso indigenous people. In building the casa, they employed traditional Naso architecture and did not cut any living trees. (They used only stems blown down in heavy storms.) 

A few closeups of the casa are available in the Tree Bank Panama page, where you can also find the project rationale and other coverage. (I need to update that page but it's still serviceable.) We funded the casa as part of our Tree Bank effort, and we continue to support it. Reinaldo, our Naso leader, took these photos with his drone in May of 2025. Here's what they show.

——  Chris Bright, Co-Founder

A strategic vantage point: you can see a lot from the casa — both people, when they're around, and local critters. The white stems in the forest are not dead trees; they're deciduous and their leaves weren't out at the time this photo was taken. The little orange blob is probably a tree in bloom.

The jaguar cave: our project area includes a site sacred to the Naso indigenous people. You can see it at the center of this photo; it includes a series of waterfalls and an adjoining cave. The site is dedicated to the jaguar — and we know that jaguars are present here because we have seen them! There's a disturbed area at the top of the photo. The disturbance was caused by the removal of several blown-down stems for use in building the casa (some nearby brush was cleared but no living trees were cut). The area will either regenerate naturally or we'll replant it — or both.

Siey-Kjing: the Naso village of Siey-Kjing, the nearest settlement, is still hours away from the casa. Note the solar cells on the big red roof.