El único Panamá - Week 15

Welcome to our weekly series about the uniqueness of Panama!

Panama has the First Indigenous Community in Latin America to be Relocated

Due to Climate Change!

According to the NGO Displacement Solutions, some 1,450 Gunas will become the first indigenous community to relocate due to climate change. The natives of Carti Sugdup island, which is in the archipelago of Guna Yala, known as San Blas, will leave their traditional huts of white sugarcane walls and straw roofs and move to the mainland. The migration from the second largest island is the first of the 36 inhabited islands in the regions 365 islands. The total indigenous population of 33,109 inhabitants is distributed among coastal lands and islets.

Scientist Steven Paton, who is the director of the physical monitoring program of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, says the Caribbean Sea, where Guna Yala is located, rises between three and six millimeters a year, which supposes an increase of up to 60 centimeters in 100 years, and in the worst-case scenario, between two and five meters.