In the islands of Bocas del Toro, Panama, mangroves do quiet, essential work: they nurse young fish, hold the shoreline together and lock away carbon. Too often they are also used as a dump. On the outer islands, families and small businesses have few affordable ways to get trash to collection in Bocas Town, so bags end up in the roots.

One Earth One Ocean, a nonprofit that has been pulling plastic out of rivers, coasts and seas around the world since 2011, set out to change that. Its Bocas del Toro project began in November 2023 together with the Bocas Recycle Center, starting on Isla San Cristóbal, home to the Ngäbe villages of San Cristóbal, Bocatorito and Valle Escondido. Working alongside local fishermen, the first cleanups removed 3.5 tonnes of waste from the mangroves, everything from bottles and bags to sofas, televisions and even an oven. Recyclables are sorted, pressed at the Recycle Center and ferried to the mainland.

Jana Köbel spearheads this work in Bocas del Toro. On May 20, 2026, she organized a cleanup of illegal dump sites in the mangroves on the south side of Isla Solarte, the same island as our Rotary Reef. About two dozen volunteers on five boats hauled out an estimated 450 to 500 bags, roughly 8 to 10 tons of trash, and found a third dump site along the way. Bocas Pirates Dive Center, Ankay Conservation, Bocas Dive Center, Panama Dive School and local businesses all pitched in. Jana's verdict on the day: “we're not finished.”

Cleaning up is only half the job. One Earth One Ocean teaches villages to separate recyclables, builds covered containers where families can store sorted waste between collections, and is working to bring every community in the archipelago into the Recycle Center's collection network. Through The Panama Project, its team also brings debris recovery and ocean lessons to local students.

Jana's work began with one simple idea: that everyday choices can keep plastic out of the sea. She has carried that message to EarthX in Dallas three years running, and has spoken there twice.

At EarthX 2023, she ran her own Seas & Straws booth, where she talked with hundreds of visitors about the harm single-use plastic does to oceans and wildlife and offered practical swaps, from shampoo bars and bamboo toothbrushes to her free plastic-free planner. That year Rotary District 5320 honored her with a Rotaract environmental award. She returned as a speaker in 2024, and again in 2025, when she also led One Earth One Ocean's exhibit and coordinated Dr. Harald Frank's presentations on SeeElefant, a floating recycling plant designed to turn 60,000 tons of plastic a year back into usable material. Back home in Bocas del Toro, the work goes on: on October 3, 2026, volunteers returned to the mangroves to clear another illegal dump site.

Why it matters for mangroves: a seedling planted in a forest full of plastic has the odds against it. Clearing the roots and stopping new dumping protects every mangrove we plant.