Farewell to the Sea | Translation
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Translated by MC Editorial
[Daniel Alarcón]: Hello, ambulantes. Before we begin, I want to talk to you about something very important. A year ago, I told you that we were on the brink of closing this company that we have built with so much effort and love. I don’t know if you remember. I do. I asked for your help, and you listened.
Since then, many things have changed. We managed to reduce our deficit, we’ve created new partnerships, launched Central, our series channel, and, well, we’re still here every week producing the best journalism possible.
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Now, here’s the episode.
This is Radio Ambulante. I’m Daniel Alarcón.
For a few years now, organizations and governments around the world have had their eyes on an island in the Caribbean Sea off Panama.
[Archive soundbite]
[Journalist 1]: The indigenous community of Gardi Sugdub says goodbye to their small Panamanian island in the Caribbean before it is swallowed up by the sea.
[Journalist 2]: About 300 families will be moved to the mainland due to the effects of climate change and overcrowding they are experiencing here.
[Journalist 3]: What some still see as far off, without realizing that it is already happening, is understood very clearly by the residents of this island off Panama—that it is happening right now.
[Daniel]: Gardi Sugdub is a small island in the Guna Yala indigenous region, known for its archipelago of paradisiacal beaches with crystal-clear water.
Some data indicate that the sea level on its coasts is rising by up to 6 millimeters per year. And it is expected that by 2050, Gardi Sugdub (Cartí Suidub), and other islands in the region, will inevitably disappear. But for decades now, flooding has been a growing problem in this community.
That is why immediate relocation to dry land is considered necessary. And so, the community that lives there will become the first to be completely displaced by climate change in Latin America.
[Daniel]: In mid-March, our journalists Lisette Arévalo and Luis Fernando Vargas visited Gardi (Cartí).
[Betzander Arango]: Hello, good morning. Well, we are arriving at the Gardi Sugdub community. Welcome in the Kuna language, and a big thank you as well.
[Daniel]: The person you’re hearing is Betzander Arango. He is from the Guna ethnic group and a resident of Gardi Sugdub. He works as a tour guide most of the time, but lately he also accompanies journalists who visit his island.
When Lisette and Luis Fernando went there, the government had announced that the long-awaited delivery of the new houses on the mainland would happen soon. The project, that had been in the works for almost 14 years, was very close to being ready: a neighborhood with 300 houses for the 1,300 Guna from the island. A new home within the same district, but 2 km away from one of its main ports. And this relocation means a radical change for the Guna of Gardi Sugdub.
[Betzander]: We practically live off the marine ecosystem. Because that’s where our food is. There’s lobster, there’s fish, there are turtles. We basically live off that. It’s the story of the Kuna people. A philosopher said that Mother Earth is our supermarket.
[Daniel]: We wanted to know what it means for them to have to leave their home because of rising sea levels. What they are leaving behind, how they are coping with the fact that part of their history will disappear, and how they will face what is coming.
But what we found is that, for this community, the change is much more complicated than it seems.
We’ll be back after a break.
[Daniel]: We’re back with Radio Ambulante. Our senior producer Lisette Arévalo picks up the story.
[Lisette Arévalo]: Gardi Sugdub, unlike what they sell you in the tourist packages for Guna Yala, is not a paradise beach. It does not welcome you with crystal-clear water or white sand. When we arrived, we got off at a small, somewhat rustic stone pier. There are plenty of them on the island. And the first thing that surprised us was the amount of trash we found everywhere. On land, in the sea.
[Betzander]: The biggest problem I identify, from my point of view, is plastic, because everything is plastic. I mean, you see here—I don’t know—if you count them, there are like more than 200 pieces of plastic, and bottles there, the bottle caps.
[Lisette]: Betzander knows that it is shocking for visitors, so he explains even before we asked him. That trash in the sea comes mainly from the Guna themselves. Their custom for hundreds of years has been to dispose of it in this way, and they don’t have other options from the government.
But they used to be biodegradable things, like banana peels, logs, weeds, fish entrails. But when Coca Cola, beer and snacks arrived, brought by the Guna themselves or by arriving tourists, this traditional way of handling trash just pollutes. And what we find is a lot of resistance on the part of the community to changing this habit.
This problem is an example of the many ways in which the Guna culture clashes with modernity. And that is a central concern during the move. How is a community that has lived for over 100 years, with its ancestral traditions, on an island, going to adapt to living in a neighborhood on the mainland, in homes that were designed for the city?
Betzander tells us the first thing we should do is go talk to the community leaders. The Sahilas. They are the decision-makers and represent the concerns and desires of the community.
The dock leads into narrow dirt walkways, which in turn lead to other walkways. It is a labyrinthine place, full of people, and it feels endless. The trash is also in the streets. It is a prominent problem. Sometimes you can’t help but kick a can or a bottle as you walk.
The streets feel taken over by houses made of wooden boards, zinc, sometimes cement, and occasionally, palm leaves. Some of these houses are painted in bright colors—blue, red, yellow. Many of them also function as grocery or handicraft stores.
A few minutes later, we come the House of Congress, where the leaders meet.
[Betzander]: (Guna)
[Lisette]: Betzander introduces us in Dulegaya, his language, and explains that we are journalists. He is talking to Nelson Morgan, the second Sahila, who is sitting on his hammock in the center of the house. Betzander helps us ask him why they are moving.
[Sahila]: (Guna)
[Lisette]: The Sahila gives us a long answer, that Betzander translates for us.
[Betzander]: Let the world know that the community of Gardi Sugdub is not going to move or is not going to relocate for reasons other than that our houses are already crowded and we don’t have—what do you call it?—places to build more houses. That is the idea. And I want other communities to know that we are moving for that reason, not for other reasons that people may be making up. It is because of overpopulation.
[Lisette]: We were surprised that one of the Sahilas, one of those who were coordinating the move, stated this so bluntly. Before going to the island, we had seen in press releases that overcrowding was a problem. But the vast majority focused on the fact that the urgency was due to flooding caused by rising sea levels. In addition, the official message about the relocation—the one that came from the Panamanian government, the Inter-American Development Bank, and various human rights organizations—said the same thing: It was, first and foremost, a matter of climate change.
This was hard for us to digest. On the one hand, we could not stop thinking about all the scientific studies that have warned us, since the 1950s, of an undeniable reality: Climate change is causing the oceans to warm, glaciers to melt, and therefore sea level around the world to rise, and soon, it will swallow up entire islands. You can’t ignore it, you can’t deny it… You can’t minimize its importance… And yet, sitting in the House of Congress with the Sahilas, they were telling us that it wasn’t for this reason that they were leaving their island.
But the Sahila is also right. There’s no room for more people in Gardi Sugdub. It’s about 300 meters long and 125 meters wide. Seen from the air, it’s shaped like the number eight, and all the houses are very close together. At first glance, there seem to be no streets or paths to walk on. If you’re lucky, you can see one or two long streets. There are 1,300 people living in that small space. Not even in Mumbai, India, is there such a high population density. Overcrowding is extreme.
Each home holds 3, 4, 5 families. That means there may be 15 to 20 people sleeping in one small house. And the population in Gardi doesn’t cease to grow. In their worldview, they believe they should welcome all the children that life sends them.
Building a second floor is not an option for the vast majority. Concrete, which is what can support such a structure, is expensive, and many families cannot afford it. Most people don’t have a steady job. They get their livelihood from tourism or fishing. Day to day. And using other types of materials is not advisable, because strong winds and storms can blow away part of the structure. This has already happened, when a second floor made of concrete with a zinc roof was built on the island school.
So the residents of Gardi Sugdub have chosen to rob space from the streets, narrowing the public space even more. Temperatures on the island can rise to a little over 30 degrees Celsius, and walking between so many houses and so many people is suffocating.
When we were there, we found a great example of how this overcrowding affects daily life. The place is in the center of the island: the school.
[Ambi school]
[Lisette]: It is a block of classrooms with a cement area in the middle that measures about 24 square meters. Consider that it is not even half a basketball court. There we saw a teacher teaching his Physical Ed class.
[Arcelio Yanqui]: Erickson, slowly, ah, don’t run, slow down, there’s no room.
[Lisette]: There were about 15 children trying to jog. Their teacher is Arcelio Yanqui. We approached him when he finished his class and asked him how the lack of space affects his students.
[Arcelio]: For example, if I start doing a speed exercise, and someone trips, the wall is righ there. I worry a lot about doing those physical exercises too often. Because they like to run, sometimes I have to be on the lookout for problems.
[Lisette]: Arcelio has had to come up with all sorts of ideas so that the children can exercise. The day we were there, he had them jog in circles and do somersaults on small mats. You could feel the urgency of having more space with each bounce of the ball, and how slowly they had to walk so as not to trip over each other.
That’s why Arcelio is anxious to move. On dry land, they have been promised a new, large school, with different spaces and fields to practice all kinds of sports.
[Arcelio]: Even the kids themselves have asked me when we are going to move across, when we are going to play there. And I answer, “No, I don’t know the date,” and it depends on the situation or the arrangements they are making, that they are working on, when it will be done and when we will get it.
[Lisette]: That uncertainty was caused by several delays in delivery, and even at the time we went, the moving date was not certain. It was more like a promise. We heard that longing to cross to dry land frequently throughout the rest of our trip. Mothers, fathers, children, and young people we spoke to. Then we began to understand that maybe the overcrowding the Sahila told us about was a more tangible and everyday problem for Gardi Sugdub than climate change.
Although one important thing should be mentioned: Overcrowding and climate change in Gardi Sugdub are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are related. As people need more space to deal with overcrowding, they have done something they call “filling.” And this process has made them more exposed to flooding—the issue that the media highlight again and again in their coverage of this subject.
[Lisette]: Can we see the filling at your house?
[Augusto]: Come on, let’s go here. I mean… It starts here.
[Luis Fernando Vargas]: Uh huh…
[Lisette]: This is Augusto Walter. He is 72 years old and is the community secretary, the leaders’ right-hand man. We followed him down dirt alleys and fences made of tall, thin sticks. We reached the end of his land. It faced the water and has an improvised dock made of wooden planks. Next to this dock are the bathrooms: two structures made of zinc sheets. The island has no drinking water, just an aqueduct from a water source on the mainland that crosses under the ocean to the island.
Augusto pointed to the ground and said:
[Augusto]: That’s all filling. That was all just water.
[Luis Fernando]: Wow. But it’s many years of work, isn’t it?
[Augusto]: Yes, that’s just it.
[Lisette]: That land we were standing on, that supported the bathroom and the dock, solid and compact, indistinguishable from the rest of the island, was created by him. It was several meters, hours and hours and hours creating land where there was none. Without heavy equipment, without excavators or trucks. Then he pointed to the other side of the dock, towards a filling that was still in progress.
[Augusto]: And that’s how we start with the filling, and you add things to it later.
[Lisette]: Things like river gravel, dry branches, leaves, stones, coconut shells, but also plastic bottles and all kinds of rubbish. Not unlike what we found polluting the dock: wrappers, lids, plastic covers. These are the materials that serve as support, which are then covered with sand to gain a few meters from the sea.
[Augusto]: Every year, I increase my land, I increase my land, I fill in, I add soil, and I move out a bit.
[Lisette]: The Guna have been filling in the islands for decades. That’s why the island is much larger than it was when they first moved to the territory, over 100 years ago. But it’s a practice that has also created problems. Until a couple of decades ago, it was very common to fill in the islands with corals that were removed from the reef in the archipelago. That has left them more vulnerable to flooding, because reefs act as a natural barrier protecting the coast.
[Diwigdy Valiente]: We have… killed those corals. We have used them as building material, and today the rising sea level is getting worse and worse, and it is causing the problems that we are experiencing.
[Lisette]: This is Diwigdy Valiente. He is Guna and lives in the region, but on an island that is almost 3 hours by boat from Gardi Sugdub. He works as director of the program for coral reef conservation at the NGO Wildlife Conservation Society. He is an activist and is engaged in educating his community about the effects of climate change and rising sea levels in the Guna Yala archipelago. He is convinced that damage to the coral reef and rising sea levels are urgent and worrisome issues.
[Diwigdy]: We have lost the ability to live with the tides, to be hit by the waves. We have lost all those, those, uh, capabilities that came from the corals around the islands protecting us. We have… killed those corals.
[Lisette]: This problem was documented 20 years ago. A study by the Smithsonian Institute of Tropical Studies analyzed the coral reef in the region. It found that Gardi Sugdub was not the only reef affected. So was the rest of the Guna community that lives in the archipelago. It was found that about 20 kilometers had been extracted to create fillers and artificial barriers against the sea. To give you an idea: With that amount of coral, a total of 60 thousand square meters of land had been created on the islands around the region. Imagine that.
As a result of the Smithsonian study, action was taken to prohibit the extraction of coral in the archipelago. Corals are very important in the marine ecosystem. Removing them is like cutting down a forest, because they are home to many other marine animals. However, this is something that was commonly done by the Guna.
[Diwigdy]: The Guna still think that corals are rocks, and they do not understand the symbiotic relationship they have with algae. And how these algae depend on the temperature of the sea to be able to stay alive and keep the coral healthy. And if we do not have healthy coral, we will also lose the biodiversity that exists thanks to the coral. We will have to start fishing farther and farther away, and the fish will be smaller and smaller. And these are also problems related to climate change that we do not fully understand or assimilate as part of a problem that does not begin with us.
[Lisette]: In their worldview, the Guna are interconnected with nature and there is a natural force that provides the fish, the coral, the forest, everything the community needs to live. It is the sea. They call it Muu Billi. In their language, Dulegaya, it means more or less Grandmother Sea. It is part of their spirituality and identity. It is difficult to reconcile that this force that feeds them, that gives them sustenance, will take away the place where they live.
[Diwigdy]: I think that is what really makes it difficult for the Guna people to see the reality that climate change is real and that, uh, to put it in some way, the Earth is taking its toll on us. Of course, not all the problems related to climate change come from the Guna people.
[Lisette]: But rather from the countries that pollute the most: the United States, Germany, Russia, India, China… Compared to them, the carbon footprint of the Guna is insignificant. But that does not mean that their actions have not caused serious problems in their ecosystem. And, therefore, in their daily lives.
[Diwigdy]: On the Gardi Islands, during the rainy months you can see the water reaching as high as your ankles all the time, for a long period of time—weeks, days. The islands get flooded.
[Lisette]: Anyway, the people we spoke to on the island told us that flooding has always happened. They don’t see it as directly linked to coral harvesting or climate change. Still, in recent years, they’ve decided to fill in a little higher to try to protect themselves from the water.
And in Gardi’s recent history, there have been some stronger-than-usual storms. One in November 2008 flooded everything for days until the water stopped hitting them. The Guna were used to storms during that time of the year, but nothing like that one. It was, according to records in the bulletin of the Guna Congress, an event that led them to think more seriously about relocating, in case a natural disaster like that were to happen again. And they mentioned, perhaps for the first time, the imminent danger of climate change.
But then, why did the Sahila tell us that the real reason for the move was not climate change but overcrowding? Diwigdi believes he has an answer for that.
[Diwigdy]: Living the reality of displacement is not easy; it is quite traumatic. I have lived in anxiety for the last few years of my life, thinking only that I will not be able to tell my children, my grandchildren or my great-grandchildren that we lived on islands, because perhaps the islands will no longer exist when they are alive. So that anxiety and that fear, I think, causes denial in many of us.
[Lisette]: It is a kind of anticipated mourning. For Diwigdi, this contrast is a problem.
[Diwigdy]: So I think there must be a reconciliation between the indigenous perspective and modern scientific knowledge, so that our people can truly flourish.
[Lisette]: To that end, he says, the government must also do its part, and there must be educational tools in harmony with the worldvies of the Guna.
[Diwi]: If that doesn’t happen, believe me, people will continue to deny what climate change is and we will continue to have these conflicts between our worldview and the current reality.
[Lisette]: And, as we said before, it wasn’t just the Sahila who told us that their move was due to overcrowding. Betzander, our guide; Augusto, the secretary; and many people we spoke with during the days we were there said the same thing. They had the same vexed tone at the idea that the sea would take their island away from them. And no one expressed it more clearly than Magdalena Martínez when we asked her how it made her feel to be told that her island would disappear one day:
[Magdalena Martínez]: They make me feel bad because people say, “Oh, they’re leaving because they don’t want to drown, because the island is going to sink.” And that is not true. It is because of overcrowding.
[Lisette]: Magdalena is 74 years old. She seemed annoyed, as if the warnings about climate change were condescending.
She told us that she was planning to move to the new neighborhood anyway. She is tired of the overcrowding and was excited to have a new house, but she said she won’t completely abandon her island, because she will always be coming and going.
[Magdalena]: It is my place. It is where I have my family, where I met my husband. My in-laws. My sister-in-law lives there. For me, it is my nega. My nega is my spirit, my life.
[Lisette]: During our visit to the island, there was no real talk of a complete move. The size of the 300 houses built by the government made it physically impossible to move all the inhabitants of Gardi Sugdub. In addition, there were people who did not want to go.
We spoke to Lenin Ávila, for example. He told us that he has an attachment to the land, not unlike Magdalena:
[Lenín Ávila]: Why? I like it. I have been here on this island for a while now—years—and I know it’s going to be kind of hard for the people who are going to cross over. They are not going to get used to it all at once. Little by little, because many of them have lived here all the time, in what has been their home.
[Lisette]: And Eivin, whom we met near a supplier, making bracelets to sell, told us he didn’t want to leave, either. He had reservations about what it would be like to live on the mainland.
[Luis Fernando]: And why do you feel better here?
[Eivin]: For example, if the breeze dies down, then there will be mosquitoes. But not here. You have to put up with that, or else you have to buy repellent.
[Luis Fernando]: Sure.
[Eivin]: But not here, and it’s cooler than it is over there.
[Lisette]: We also met people who had mixed feelings about the move. Yadiles Mojica, a university student, told us that, although she thinks it’s a great opportunity, she’s worried about the culture being lost. Especially because of the environment in which the children will grow up in the new neighborhood.
[Yadiles Mojica]: Here, the children run around barefoot, in boxer shorts or whatever, but they are enjoying themselves; and their childhood there is going to be different, because the surroundings are going to change.
[Lisette]: Teacher Loydé Luther told us she knows it is necessary for the children especially, who will be closer to the new school in the neighborhood. But she loves living on the island.
[Loydé Luther]: There is a lot of breeze; it is more peaceful. I don’t know, it’s the tranquility of the island, the sound of the sea, the breeze, and you can look out and see the ocean. You might be able to catch a glimpse of some dolphins.
[Lisette]: There were also people who were skeptical about the move because of the constant delays. It had become something of a ghost on the island, a constant presence that many believed in and others did not. But when we were there in March of this year, the leaders were sure that it was finally going to happen. And they were happy to show us their promised new home. So we went to see just that: What they were being offered.
[Daniel]: We’ll be back after a break.
[Daniel]: We’re back with Radio Ambulante. Our senior editor Luis Fernando Vargas continues the story.
[Betzander]: Is it five minutes?
[Driver]: Where to?
[Betzander]: To get to the neighborhood.
[Conductor]: Yes… no, less.
[Luis Fernando]: To get to the new neighborhood from Gardi Sugdub, you have to take a boat and travel about 10 minutes. Then, from the port, you can walk for about 20 minutes through the mountains or go for 5 minutes in one of the many cars that carry tourists and residents of the area to the city.
The Guna named the new neighborhood Isberyala, which means “land of the loquat” in their language. There are many loquat trees on the 14-hectare area. We went with Betzander Arango, our guide, and Edilbertina González, vice president of the community committee that oversees the construction. It was an extremely hot day, and it felt even hotter 2 km inland, away from the sea breeze. We entered the neighborhood by car. It felt infinitely larger and more spacious than the island.
[Betzander]: Right now, we are seeing construction vehicles working, people working who are hired by the same company.
[Luis Fernando]: The streets were not yet paved, but had gravel. The whole neighborhood is designed in blocks. All the houses are made of prefabricated concrete, each a copy of the next one, with wide streets where tractors and heavy machinery could pass. It is not very different from a well-off neighborhood in Panama. Except for one thing:
[Betzander]: Well, there is also the House of Congress (Guna language) and (Guna language) that is where the Assembly is held, it is where the Sahilas are going to be here.
[Luis Fernando]: Betzander is referring to the traditional houses where the community leaders will meet. These, unlike the houses where the families will live, retain the traditional design of wood and palm roofs. They are sacred structures located in the center of everything. Essential to preventing the oblivion of their culture and preserving something of their way of life. It has been a fundamental point in all the planning that, in fact, began long before it was known that the sea was rising 2 mm a year in the archipelago.
According to the leaders, the idea of building a new neighborhood dates back to the late 90s. By then, there was already no room for anyone on the island. But construction did not begin until 10 years later, when several Guna families donated their land 2 km from the port so that people could move in. At first, they tried to make the traditional houses of their culture—houses of palm and wood designed for the heat and with ample spaces for large families—with just the resources of the community, but it was impossible. It was too expensive.
So they asked the Panamanian government for help, and after years of negotiations and insistence, they managed to get the construction funded in 2019. The government focused mainly on the argument that climate change was affecting the island, and decided that the houses would be the model of the social welfare house they ran, and not what the Guna originally wanted. But it was better than nothing.
In the following years, things began to move along. The Inter-American Development Bank committed to supporting the construction of the neighborhood and the adaptation of the community. International organizations and diplomats from various countries such as China and the United Kingdom visited to give advice on different issues and show their support. And the neighborhood project coincided with the construction of a model school and a hospital that the government was already building in the area.
Edilbertina, from the neighborhood committee, started giving us a tour of the place:
[Edilbertina]: We are now on 5th Street. It is 5th street from the last. It is…
[Luis Fernando]: She took the opportunity to snap photos of everything. For months, she had been documenting the progress of the project for the community, to give an account of it. Being there, standing in the middle of the row of beige and yellow houses, felt like seeing all those years, almost 15 years of work, finally come to fruition. But, as we walked around, it was clear that the project was not ready yet.
Some houses were open, with men working in them, and Guna women were cleaning others. We approached one with Edilbertina.
[Lisette]: Can we go inside one of them?
[Edilbertina]: Yes, we are going to go inside and look.
[Luis Fernando]: The houses, of about 40 square meters, had two rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a small area for the living room and dining room. But there was still no water or electricity. A man was working on the installation. In the back, there was a laundry room for clothes and a large plot of land. In all, each family will have a plot of land of 300 square meters.
[Ambi new neighborhood]
[Luis Fernando]: OK, your plot of land goes from this little wall here to there.
[Edilbertina]: It is over there, that is the dot over there, do you see it? Between here and the pink dot it is 300 square meters that were given to the whole family to build another house.
[Luis Fernando]: That’s a pretty large space, isn’t it?
She already had ideas for her own house:
[Edilbertina]: The land in the back is ours. So I want to expand it. How much construction will I use for the family. Another family.
[Luis Fernando]: That is, once you are living in your house, you want to build another structure in the backyard so that another family can live there.
[Ambi new neighborhood]
[Luis Fernando]: So what are you hoping for, to add to your house? What is the first thing you want?
[Edilbertina]: Hmm, I am going to plant my cassava plants in the back as my food source.
[Luis Fernando]: There was hope in Edilbertina’s expression. Not so much about what the neighborhood was at that time, but about what it could become. It will be the first large settlement that tourists will find before leaving for the islands. And many are seeing this as an opportunity to generate income through shops.
But, in addition to the fact that there was still no electricity or water, there were other things to resolve, important things. For example, the cost of electricity. Gardi Sugdub works with a plant for which gasoline is bought communally and a symbolic amount is paid. Between $5 and $10. In contrast, the new neighborhood will have electric service from a private company, like the rest of the country. A 24-hour service that many families cannot afford.
There was also the issue of trash management, because there was still no waste processing plan. In addition, there was the issue of how they were going to protect themselves from the mosquitoes in the area and the diseases they transmit. There was no prevention plan for that. Another thing the Guna were asking for was a fence around the neighborhood as a barrier against wild animals, such as felines and snakes—a problem they did not have with the sea as a neighbor.
There were no answers from either the community or the government to these questions. But it was precisely these questions that helped us understand how much the move meant. More than logistics, it was a change in a way of life. A clash between tradition and modernity.
No one was more aware of this than Betzander, our guide. Here he is during the tour when we asked him whether he was excited to see his future home:
[Ambi new neighborhood]
[Lisette]: But from a personal perspective, it’s exciting to see what your next home could be.
[Betzander]: Well, I am not precisely excited; it’s like I am suddenly moving to Panama. So it is not so much excitement. I don’t know, I don’t know how to describe it.
[Luis Fernando]: Betzander had already left Gardi Sugdub to study tourism in Switzerland on government scholarships, and had returned because he felt the need to preserve his culture. At times, his apathy towards the move seemed to us as if he thought the neighborhood was an affront to that desire for the Guna way of life to continue.
But at one point during our tour, Edilbertina showed Betzander what would be his home. His and his family’s. It was the first time he had seen it. We went in, and Betzander didn’t say much. He just looked at the spaces around him—the two bedrooms, the bathroom, the kitchen. Almost as if he were imagining how and where his life would fit. When we went out to the back, he looked at the whole lot and began to tell us that a garden could be planted there. Then he said:
[Ambi new neighborhood]
[Betzander]: I feel happy now because I saw my home.
[Lisette]: What did you say?
[Betzander]: I was asking myself how I felt and how I didn’t… I don’t feel anything. Now I feel happy because I saw my house.
[Luis Fernando]: Because that house was a promise of a life, in theory a slightly more comfortable and stable life, with more space, with electricity and reliable drinking water. Because, yes, in Gardi Sugdub people live with climate change—things like floods, sea level and an increasingly hot climate—but also without regular work and basic services. State abandonment is evident.
And yes, maybe the Guna people think that climate change will happen in the future, but those houses in the new neighborhood are there, now, because of that, not because of their daily needs. Augusto Walter, the community secretary who showed us the landfill, told us so:
[Ambi new neighborhood]
[Lisette]: Do you think the government would support you in this relocation if it weren’t for this climate change talk?
[Augusto]: No.
[Lisette]: Why not?
[Augusto]: Because I know who they are. They are supporting us because of the other countries that have been thinking about this and have come for this reason. And so the government also wants to take advantage of this.
[Luis Fernando]: Ever since it was first mentioned that climate change was one of the biggest motivations for relocating the community, they found support. Delegations from countries and non-governmental organizations have not stopped coming to the island to see how to help them cover their basic needs, such as thinking of ways to manage trash and wastewater in the new neighborhood, for example.
It is difficult, as journalists, to talk about the case of Gardi Sugdub. Because it is difficult to understand. To understand that climate change, one of the most important problems facing humanity, is not an issue that immediately concerns the Guna; it’s an issue with which they do not identify. Perhaps they are fed up to see that only now do dozens of journalists, scientists, politicians and activists come again and again to look at their reality and tell them what their problems are, without really experiencing them.
And it is more difficult to understand when you see the remains of coral in the landfills. That species that we know must be protected and whose destruction, science tells us, has caused irreversible problems. It makes you feel helpless and frustrated. Because that damage has cost them—and nature—but they have done it to survive.
It is very easy to judge them for clinging to their island when we do not experience what it means for them to migrate. Being indigenous, in many places—and Panama is no exception—implies almost guaranteed discrimination and exclusion.
It is difficult. Because everything looks simpler from the other side.
We left Gardi Sugdub feeling concerned. Because we are also experiencing a mourning. A different kind, of course, from a more comfortable and distant position, but it is still a feeling of loss. Gardi Sugdub will not be the only relocation of a community with the weight of climate change attached to it. What’s more, it is the first of many in the coming decades. It is a story of the future. And it is also a story that brings with it the thousands of problems of the present: inequality, discrimination, state abandonment. Worlds and cultures unable to reconcile.
And so, with that grief and the grief of the Guna in mind, with the uncertainty of a move that was not entirely well planned, we waited for the date of the move.
The move took place two months later. On May 29, 2024, the government gave the families the keys to their homes and told them they could move in within a few days. This is then-president, Laurentino Cortizo:
[Laurentino Cortizo]: I am sure that the people we have to relocate, starting, by the way, on Monday, June 3, would not want to move from their island. I mean, it is not easy. It is a process. And this is an issue that, I repeat and have repeated and will continue to repeat, is a product of the climate crisis.
[Luis Fernando]: The new neighborhood cost 12 million dollars. The relocation of the population was a kind of test for the other 63 island displacements that the State plans to conduct before 2050, the year in which when all the islands are estimated to have disappeared.
During the delivery of the keys, the then-president said that Panama, despite its efforts to be a carbon-negative country, has to invest money in addressing the climate change crisis, and that developed countries must do their part to comply with the Paris Agreement, which, among other things, seeks to reduce their emissions.
The message was clear: the Panamanian government was the first in Latin America to take on the responsibility of relocating of an entire community of climate refugees. In fact, this has been recognized by the United Nations Population Fund. It was as if Cortizo did not want to miss the opportunity to be linked to such a tremendous feat, considering that a month after the keys were handed over, there would be a change of government. There was some kind of show built into the whole ceremony.
Betzander and his family were among those who received their keys. In a video he sent us, he is seen standing with his mother in front of their new house, where a government social worker told them:
[Woman]: Here are your keys. You take the keys tooo, because they are yours too, my dear lady. Take them. Here they are on behalf of the president and the minister.
[Luis Fernando]: Through WhatsApp messages, Betzander told us that his mother was very happy because she had longed for that house for a long time.
The official move of the people of Gardi Sugdub began on June 3 and lasted 3 days. The government sent officers from the National Border Service, Senafront, and the National Aeronaval Service, to assist the people that day. They called it “Operation Dulup,” which means locust in the Dulegaya language.
The move began at 7 in the morning. It was pouring rain. There were puddles in the narrow streets of the island. The danger of flooding was imminent. We contacted Betzander to find out how everything was going.
[Archive soundbite]
[Luis Fernando]: In a video he sent us from that day, you can see people at one of the ports, the boats loaded with suitcases, plastic chairs, wooden furniture, blankets, brooms…
[Betzander]: The first boat is leaving. Although some have already left, this is the first boat to go with Senafront.
[Luis Fernando]: Some families, like Betzander’s, decided to postpone their move for another day. Some other people from the island went to see how the first boat under the charge of the Panamanian government institutions was doing. But most of the people there were journalists taking pictures and filming how Senafront agents loaded the boat and assisted from the port. And from what we could see in that video, that specific moment seemed to be made more for the press than for the people of Gardi. Because, in reality, at the time of closing this story, the new neighborhood was not even completely ready to live in.
[Betzander]: Right now, there is no water because there is no electricity.
[Luis Fernando]: Betzander told us he spoke to the person who was checking the electrical system, and that he said that it was poorly done. That they might have electricity in a month. There was less information about water. All of this is the result of misunderstandings between the government and the electric companies and the bureaucracy. The solution? Many families are taking with them the solar panels installed in their homes by a previous government. But again, someone is left without electricity.
[Betzander]: I’m moving in the next 8 days, and I’m taking the panel so that there is light in my house, so we can at least have a fan there. Because otherwise, imagine how hot it gets at night, and so many gnats and mosquitoes.
[Luis Fernando]: Heat without a breeze, and mosquitoes. Two problems that they never had on their island and that they knew for a long time could be a nuisance on the mainland. Added to that was the fact that, by the time they began the move, there was still no waste management plan and the problems with electricity, water and gas payments persisted. Things continued almost as they were when we left, and yet the people were relocated.
The health center on the island continued to operate as usual because there is none in the new neighborhood. And because the Guna from the other islands will continue to go there to be treated. The hospital that was supposed to be built on the mainland was never finished. And the school in Gardi Sugdub had not yet closed because, as we said, the new one was not completely ready. Life continued to take place in the middle of the sea, and very few had left the island. Very different from what was heard so much in the media in those days.
On the third day of the move, we were able to speak with Magdalena Martinez, the woman who told us that it bothered her to be called climate refugees. She had been excited about the move, eager to live in her new home. But this time, her tone of voice was different:
[Magdalena]: I am very disappointed. There are only about ten people in the neighborhood because we don’t have any water.
[Luis Fernando]: She had started her moving process, but put a halt to it.
[Magdalena]: Water is the most important thing, and right now that well is not enough for us. And if we have no water, just imagine. Now, in a few months we will have even less water. So I am very sad about that, and I cannot stay in the house because I need water and electricity.
[Luis Fernando]: By that point, the problem was no longer sea level or overcrowding. It was one they had known for a long time: being invisible to the government.
[Magdalena]: We have to adapt and see what we can do. Fight to get all these things again. So it is sad to go to a place and start from nothing, leaving behind a whole world of memories. Well, that is the daily struggle of the native people, the peasants, the poor people.
[Luis Fernando]: Meanwhile, the sea is rising. The Guna who stayed continue to fill in and build barriers against it, because what other options do they have? Those who decided to move are trying to start over in a new place. And with the benefit of distance, we see the situation with the idea that the planet is no longer the same… That things will get more difficult for them, and for many of us.
[Daniel]: Isberyala was built within the protected area of Narganá, Panama. However, an investigative report by the digital outlet Mongabay revealed that the necessary environmental studies were not conducted before the construction began. . This oversight may have contributed to the degradation of the protected area as the population grows.
By late November 2024, nearly six months after the relocation, the Guna community in the new settlement continued to experience issues with electricity and water services. Additionally, they are still seeking a solution for waste collection.
This episode was made possible with the support of Oxfam in Latin America and the Caribbean, an international organization working to combat inequality and poverty by promoting economic, social, and gender justice.
Special thanks to Héctor Guzmán from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute for his guidance.
This story was produced and reported by Lisette Arévalo and Luis Fernando Vargas. Lisette is a senior producer at Radio Ambulante. She lives in Quito, Ecuador. Luis Fernando is a senior editor at Radio Ambulante and lives in San José, Costa Rica.
This episode was edited by Camila Segura, Natalia Sánchez Loayza, and me. Bruno Scelza did the fact-checking. Sound design is by Andrés Azpiri and Rémy Lozano, with original music by Rémy.
The rest of the Radio Ambulante team includes Paola Alean, Pablo Argüelles, Lucía Auerbach, Adriana Bernal, Diego Corzo, Emilia Erbetta, Selene Mazón, Juan David Naranjo, Melisa Rabanales, Natalia Ramírez, Barbara Sawhill, David Trujillo, Ana Tuirán, Elsa Liliana Ulloa and Desirée Yépez.
Carolina Guerrero is the CEO.
Radio Ambulante is a podcast by Radio Ambulante Estudios, produced and mixed on the Hindenburg PRO program.
If you enjoyed this episode and want us to continue doing independent journalism about Latin America, support us through Deambulantes, our membership program. Visit radioambulante.org/donar and help us continue narrating the region.
Radio Ambulante tells the stories of Latin America. I’m Daniel Alarcón. Thanks for listening.
