Dressed in military-style fatigues and holding a metal pole for catching snakes, José Luis Ortega hardly looks to be at the vanguard of a $5.25bn project to expand Panama’s canal.
But before long, the strip of land near the Pacific Coast that Mr Ortega is clearing of fauna in preparation for the bulldozers will be gone. In its place there will be an access channel that by 2014 will take some of the world’s largest maritime vessels from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
