“If the island sinks, I will sink with it,” Delfino Davies says, his smile not fading for a second. There is silence, except for the swish of his broom across the floor of the small museum he runs documenting the life of his community in Panama, the Guna. “Before, you could hear children shouting… music everywhere, neighbours arguing,” he says, “but now all the sounds have gone”. His community, living on the tiny low-lying island of Gardi Sugdub, is the first in Panama to be relocated because of climate change. The government has said they face “imminent risk” from rising sea levels, which scientists say are likely to render the island uninhabitable by 2050.
In June last year, most of the residents abandoned this cramped jumble of wooden and tin homes for rows of neat prefabricated houses on the mainland. The relocation has been praised by some as a model for other groups worldwide whose homes are under threat, but even so, it has divided the community. “My father, my brother, my sisters-in-law and my friends are gone,” says Delfino. “Sometimes the children whose families have stayed cry, wondering where their friends have gone, he says. House after house is padlocked. About 1,000 people left, while about 100 stayed – some because there was not enough room in the new settlement. Others, like Delfino, are not fully convinced climate change is a threat, or simply did not want to leave. He says he wants to stay close to the ocean, where he can fish. “The people that lose their tradition lose their soul. The essence of our culture is on the islands,” he adds.
The Guna have lived on Gardi Sugdub since the 19th Century, and even longer on other islands in this archipelago off Panama’s northern coast. They fled from the mainland to escape Spanish conquistadors and, later, epidemics and conflict with other indigenous groups. They are known for their clothes called “molas”, decorated with colourful designs.
The Guna currently inhabit more than 40 other islands. Steve Paton, a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, says it is “almost a certainty” that most, if not all, of the islands will be submerged before the end of the century. As climate change causes the Earth to heat up, sea levels are rising as glaciers and ice sheets melt and seawater expands as it warms Scientists warn that hundreds of millions of people living in coastal areas around the world could be at risk by the end of the century.
On Gardi Sugdub, waves whipped up during the rainy season wash into homes, lapping below the hammocks where families sleep. Mr Paton says, “it is very unlikely that the island will be habitable by 2050, based on current and projected rates of sea level rise”. However, the first discussions about relocation began, more than a decade ago, because of population growth, not climate change. The island is just 400m long and 150m wide. Some residents see overcrowding as the more pressing problem. But others, like Magdalena Martínez, fear the rising sea: “Every year, we saw the tides were higher,” she says. “We couldn’t cook on our stoves and it was always flooded… so we said ‘we have to get out of here’.” Magdalena was among those who clambered into motor boats and wooden canoes last June, bound for new homes. “I brought just my clothes and some kitchen utensils,” she says. “You feel like you are leaving pieces of your life on the island.”
The new community, Isberyala, is – weather permitting – just 15 minutes by boat, followed by a five-minute drive, from Gardi Sugdub. But it feels like another world. Identical white and yellow homes line tarmacked roads. Magdalena’s eyes light up as she shows off the “little house” where she lives with her 14-year-old granddaughter Bianca and her dog. Each house has a small area of land behind it – a luxury not available on the island. “I want to plant yucca, tomatoes, bananas, mangoes and pineapples,” she enthuses. “It is quite sad to leave a place you’ve been in for so long. You miss your friends, the streets where you lived, being so close to the sea,” she says.
Isberyala was built with $15m (£12m) from the Panamanian government and additional funding from the Inter-American Development Bank. In its new meeting house, which is roofed with branches and leaves in the traditional style, waits Tito López, the community’s sayla – or leader. “My identity and my culture aren’t going to change, it’s just the houses that have changed,” he says. He is lying in a hammock, and explains that as long as the hammock keeps its place in Guna culture, “the heart of the Guna people will be alive”. When a Guna dies, they lie for a day in their hammock for family and friends to visit. It is then buried next to them.
In the state-of-the-art new school, students aged 12 and 13 are rehearsing Guna music and dances. Boys in bright shirts play pan pipes, while girls wearing molas shake maracas. The cramped school on the island has closed now, and students whose families stayed there travel each day to the new building with its computers, sports fields and library. Magdalena says conditions in Isberyala are better than on the island, where she says they had only four hours of electricity a day and had to fetch drinking water by boat from a river on the mainland. In Isberyala, the power supply is constant, but the water – pumped from wells nearby – is only switched on for a few hours a day. The system has at times broken down for days at a time.
Also, there is no healthcare yet. Another resident, Yanisela Vallarino, says one evening her young daughter was unwell and she had to arrange transport back to the island late at night to see a doctor. Panamanian authorities told the BBC that construction of a hospital in Isberyala stalled a decade ago over lack of funding. But they said they hoped to revive the plan this year, and were assessing how to create space for remaining residents to move from the island.
Yanisela is delighted that she is now able to attend evening classes in the new school, but she still returns to the island frequently. “I’m not used to it yet. And I miss my house,” she says. Communities around the world will be “inspired” by the way the residents of Gardi Sugdub have confronted their situation, says Erica Bower, a researcher on climate displacement at Human Rights Watch. “We need to learn from these early cases to understand what success even looks like,” she says.
As afternoon arrives, the school activities give way to the shouts and scuffles of football, basketball and volleyball. “I prefer this place to the island because we have more space to play,” says eight-year-old Jerson, before diving for a football. Magdalena sits with her granddaughter, teaching her to sew molas. “It’s hard for her, but I know she’s going to learn. Our unique ways can’t be lost,” says Magdalena. Asked what she misses about the island, she replies: “I wish we were all here.”
