Panama Supreme Court Weighs Fate of $260 Million Puerto Baru Port

A $260 million port project on Panama's Pacific coast now sits with the country's Supreme Court, which is weighing the environmental approval for Puerto Baru after six local nonprofits challenged it. The outcome decides whether the biggest private investment in Chiriqui Province's history gets built.

The fight pits two wealthy Americans against each other. Hedge fund billionaire Louis Bacon, 70, founder of Moore Capital Management, opposes the port. Developer John McKeown, who leads Ocean Pacific Investments, wants to build it just south of the city of David, in western Panama.

What does each side want?

To Bacon, the Gulf of Chiriqui is an ecological oasis of crystalline waters and forested riverways. To McKeown, the gulf is a conduit to markets for the region's produce and an economic boon. Both claim to champion Panama's interests.

Ocean Pacific describes Puerto Baru as Panama's first "green" port, one that would relieve pressure on Panama City's trading hubs and link into trade routes to North America and Asia. Chiriqui, population around 500,000, is Panama's breadbasket, growing coffee, papayas and shrimp.

The company envisages a 124-hectare (306-acre) commercial port — the largest private investment in the province's history, according to Ocean Pacific. It would also add a dock for leisure vessels to draw tourism. A company-commissioned economic assessment from 2021 put potential job creation at upwards of 1,100.

Why are environmentalists alarmed?

The site sits among channels holding a quarter of Panama's mangrove forests. Mangroves fortify coastlines, shelter sea life and absorb enormous amounts of carbon. Six Panamanian environmental groups argue the facility and its cargo-ship traffic would irreversibly damage the ecosystem through pollution, water churn and blocked sunlight.

Bacon pulled no punches in a statement to Bloomberg News: "I am concerned that the principals behind this project have no experience developing or operating commercial ports, yet they are proposing a major port in one of the most environmentally sensitive areas in Panama." He added: "A simple look at the map would tell you this is not a suitable development site."

McKeown fired back in his own statement: "If I believed Puerto Baru would cause significant harm to a part of Panama, a country I not only love but call home, I would never have committed myself or my resources to developing this project."

An Ocean Pacific spokesman said the company "strongly disagrees" the port would cause irreparable damage. Impacts were "studied extensively and addressed in detail" during an environmental review that took four years, included a well-attended public hearing, and was approved two years ago. The project website touts solar panels for all power needs and dedicated conservation zones. The company also stressed it is not a port operator itself and intends to partner with one.

How did the courts get involved?

The NGOs challenged the approval, taking the case to Panama's Supreme Court. Ocean Pacific kept working on the port while the court deliberates. Then it struck back, filing criminal complaints against two of the nonprofits — CIAM and Adopta Bosque — for slander, libel and crimes against the economy. Ocean Pacific declined to comment on ongoing litigation.

Shortly after, the two groups said a court order froze their bank accounts. Unable to pay staff or raise funds, they are struggling to survive. Staff say the measures have spooked other charities that might have spoken out. Joana Abrego, former legal manager and now external consultant for CIAM, compared the case to SLAPP lawsuits designed to intimidate critics.

Bacon called the legal action extraordinary: "I've never had to support environmental advocates facing criminal penalties simply for raising concerns about a development project. Lawfare against whistleblowers is abominable."

Who is backing whom?

Bacon's credentials as a conservationist run deep. The 70th-biggest landowner in the US, according to the Land Report, he has placed 94% of that land under conservation easements that permanently ban development. He co-founded Waterkeeper Alliance, formerly run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and through the Moore Charitable Foundation has fought projects near his properties, including a North Carolina cement plant. He also waged a bitter yearslong feud with Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard over neighboring Bahamas properties.

The Baru fight is personal too. Bacon owns Islas Secas, an eco-tourism resort on an archipelago about 30 miles southwest of the proposed port, where nightly rates start at $3,500. He said the port is far enough away that it won't directly affect his island, but dredging and habitat disruption would have cascading consequences. He has personally covered Adopta Bosque's legal costs, funded the broader campaign — an online petition and website endorsed by nearly four dozen organizations, many of them past grantees — and paid for an alternative plan relocating the port about 50 miles west to Puerto Armuelles. His foundation funded an impact analysis estimating the port's environmental toll at around $30 million over 20 years.

McKeown has his own Panama ties. A part-time resident, he said a deep-sea fishing trip sparked the idea: the captain had to travel seven hours to resupply because no suitable dock existed. As president of the Los Angeles-area energy firm Synergy Oil & Gas, he helped create one of California's biggest protected wetlands by decommissioning an active oil field. Before that, he worked as a real estate broker and owned container and logistics yards. He has raised money for Puerto Baru from US individuals he declined to identify.

The two men nearly collaborated. Bacon said he offered to help pay for additional scientific analyses and a coastal modeling study but got no response. Ocean Pacific said McKeown exchanged emails with Bacon's son Trevor and concluded new analyses would duplicate existing work. McKeown dismissed Puerto Armuelles as too far from the region's farms to be feasible.

What happens next?

Environment Minister Juan Carlos Navarro said the ministry is legally "obliged to respect" the approval, signed off by a previous administration, and will abide by the Supreme Court's ruling. He declined to comment on the NGO lawsuits but said their nature had ministry officials "deeply concerned." "Panama is a democratic country," he said. "At the Ministry of Environment we value and promote active, robust citizen participation."

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, CEO of environmental consultancy VANGLabs and Panama's former special climate representative, said some impact from a project this size is inevitable, and voiced skepticism about its promised benefits: "These large projects are usually presented as bringing jobs and development, but they often produce social conflict, extract wealth from the communities and send the returns elsewhere."

Abrego put it more starkly: "Organizations like ours are on our own. We don't have institutions that protect us." Two environmentalists declined to speak on the record, citing fear for their safety.

With the court's decision pending, Ocean Pacific continues site work — and the canal-adjacent nation that markets itself as a conservation leader must decide whether a $260 million port and a quarter of its mangroves can share the same coastline.