Turbulent times lie ahead for a community of Indigenous Guna people who in June were relocated from their island of Gardí Sugdub in the Caribbean Sea to a new mainland settlement. The island community became the first in Panama to be officially recognized by the government as victims of forced displacement driven by climate change.
Thanks to Climate Tracker for their article in Spanish on which this is based. Main image: The small island of Gardí Sugdub in Guna Yala, Panama. Photo: Ministerio de Gobierno de Panamá.
‘Today is a day to celebrate for our community’, said José Deivis when 300 families began relocating from the island of Gardí Sugdub to Panama’s mainland earlier this year. Deivis, who is the Sáhila/Saila, the Guna chief or spiritual leader, of Gardí Sugdub, saw the move as an opportunity to start afresh. Faced with a ‘severe’ level of vulnerability to climate change by 2030, the Guna people (also known as (Gunadule, Cuna, and Tule) of Gardí Sugdub hope to settle into the newly constructed community of Isber Yala.
Located 1,200 metres off the northern coast of Panama within the Guna Yala Archipelago of around 370 islands, Gardí Sugdub measures only 300 metres long and 120 metres wide. Yet the small island was home to almost 1,300 Indigenous Guna people until the relocation process began in June. With sea levels rising 3.4mm per year according to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute – almost double the rate observed in the 1960s – the island now sits at just 0.5 to 1 metre above the water. The Panamanian government predicts the entire island will be submerged by 2050, with all 50 populated Guna Yala islands on the agenda to be evacuated by 2,100.
The sea is swallowing the land
The timely evacuation of Gardí Sugdub has been carried out with the support and investment of the Panamanian government, making it the first of its kind for the Central American nation. The relocation cost amounted to a total of 12 million dollars. This includes transportation costs from the island as well as new housing and infrastructure for the community on the mainland. According to the government, the new community will have 300 fully equipped new homes, alongside a school, a sports park, an aqueduct system, and electricity.
Yet for many on the island, the government has not done enough to support the relocation. The proposal was first initiated by activists and local governors in Gardí Sugdub in 2010. It was not until 2017 that the Panamanian government agreed to support the relocation. Seven years later, following multiple delays by The Ministry of Housing and Territorial Planning (Miviot), the people of Gardí Sugdub were losing hope.
In July 2023 Human Rights Watch released its report ‘The Sea is Eating the Land Below Our Homes’ which criticized the government’s inefficiency and poor time management. It also revealed community members’ doubts that the construction would be completed, given the government’s track record of unfulfilled commitments.
When the move did eventually take place in June 2024, many residents felt it did not meet the standards they required to sufficiently settle in their new territory. There was still no sustainable procedure for waste disposal, the school had no water, and the health centre had to be abandoned due to deterioration. Gunadule professor Bernal Damián Castillo Díaz denounced President Laurentino Cortizo’s use of ‘intense political propaganda to mark the end of his term’, suggesting that the government deliberately overlooked ‘unresolved issues’ in the relocation of the people of Gardí Sugdub.
‘It’s not easy to change your customs from one day to the next’
Beneath these infrastructural issues lies a challenge which is more difficult to combat in the long-term: cultural loss. The new houses, built from PVC, are a world away from the bamboo homes in Gardí Sugdub which prioritize communal living and shared open space. In contrast, the new homes are closed and separate and do not provide space to erect the hammocks that the Guna are accustomed to sleeping in. Likewise, residents are concerned about adapting to the lifestyle on the mainland, having grown used to fishing for food and being surrounded by sea. Yet Minister Paredes (Miviot) has insisted that ‘they are close enough to the sea to be able to continue going out fishing’.
The Guna people are no strangers to displacement. At the time of Spanish colonization, they lived on what is today Colombia’s Caribbean coast, near the Gulf of Urabá. But when conflict erupted, they migrated to the Darién region of today’s Panama where they lived along the rivers. Yet here they became exposed to illness and mosquito-borne disease, and finally landed on the San Blás islands as their permanent home. This relocation, however, was not always harmonious. In 1925, following the division of Colombia and Panama, Nele Kantule, an Indigenous chief, led the Dule Revolution against the Panamanian government citing unfair treatment and suppression. This resulted in a treaty which allowed the Guna to self-govern within the Panamanian national body, a treaty which stands to this day. It is unclear how self-governance will be upheld in the new community.
Parts of Gardí Sugdub island have already become inhabitable in recent years due to climate change driven by sea level rising which has caused flooding and overcrowding in the town. Local Spanish teacher Lilibeth Meléndez describes how when it rains, the whole island floods and says that the community is ‘looking forward to the move. This is an opportunity for our students, who deserve a quality education, like they have in the city’. Meanwhile, Mayka Tejada, a 45-year-old mother who was born and raised on the island said she was ‘ready to go’ because she ‘can’t cope with sleeping [on the island] with her children anymore’. She added that in the new community she will have her own room.
Some residents, however, have chosen not to relocate. One of those is Valerio Aguilar, a boatman and farmer, who refused to leave on the grounds that he wanted to preserve the land he inherited from his ancestors. Another is Daleyka Hernández, who, in spite of the rest of her family opting to leave, has decided to continue running her business on the island. She said at the time, ‘I believe people will return, it’s not easy to change your customs from one day to the next.’
Five months on from the relocation, photojournalist Euan Wallace visited the community of Isber Yala. One woman, Lina Morris, described how the loss of tradition is already occurring. She explained that the traditional practice in which the Saila sings with the women of the community every two days has been lost. ‘Since we moved here, they don’t do that anymore’, she said.
Nonetheless, many Guna, of whom there are over 32,000 in Panama, are absolute in their commitment to preserving their culture. Wallace documented a protest in Panama City against the celebration of Columbus Day on 12 October, photographing a student group shouting ‘the blood that has been spilled will never be forgotten’. The protest demonstrated Dule resistance to assimilation.
A new form of violence
Although the government-backed relocation of the Guna of Gardí Sugdub is the first of its kind in Panama, Latin America is no stranger to the effects of climate change. It is said that the melting of the Patagonian ice fields alone has contributed a 2 per cent rise in global annual sea level since 1998.
In April 2024 Colombia became the first Latin American country to legally recognize climate-driven migration as a form of forced displacement. The Latin American country has reported 351,000 displacements caused by flooding and storms to date, second only to Brazil which registered 745,000 provoked principally by flooding and forest fires. Peru and Chile have also recorded sharp increases in extreme flooding. Across the continent, 2.1 million displacements were caused by natural disasters in Latin America in 2023, a number larger than displacements caused by conflict and violence.
Climate displacement specialist Erica Bower says that ‘Gardí Sugdub offers a vision of planned relocation directed by the community and supported by the government as climate adaptation, but their experience is not exempt from challenges. Panama must learn from this case and write up a national policy to better safeguard human rights for future planned resettlements related to climate.’ It is hoped that this will serve as an example to other countries across the continent.
Six months on from the relocation, the long-term impact of relocation remains to be seen in Isber Yala. Yet one thing is clear: the Indigenous Guna have continued to adapt to the environmental changes they face, and they stand firm in their resilience against cultural assimilation.
This story was brought to us by Climate Tracker América Latina. You can read Jorge Hurtado’s piece on this topic, in Spanish, here.