Feature Article

Protecting the Rainforest in Panamá: Crossroads of the World—Part II

© 2004 By Charlotte Meares
Photography © 2004 Lorran Meares, All Rights Reserved

Panamá took a step toward preservation in 1980 and set aside 5,790 square kilometers of the Darién as a National Park. In 1981 UNESCO recognized the Park as a World Heritage Site. And it was designated as a Biosphere Reserve two years later.

But these efforts didn’t stop the assault on this ecosystem. Special government-issued permits enabled foreign industries to operate within park boundaries. Outside park boundaries mining, farming, ranching and logging persisted. And indigenous peoples of the Darién felt the effects of the squeeze.

Monitoring exploitative big business in Third World countries, global non-profit organizations spoke out. The World Rainforest Movement (WRM), in its April 2002 bulletin No. 57, states:

"Although the government of Panamá says, on the one hand, that it promotes the conservation and protection of the remaining forests, on the other hand, it wants to promote the mining activity within the national territory, and even inside protected areas. Almost all indigenous territories are included in the requests for mining exploration permits, even though mining activity is against the religious and spiritual principals of the indigenous peoples. It is thus necessary to adopt measures for the recognition of traditional rights of the indigenous peoples to their territories, as a crucial aspect of the sustainable use of forests and the equitable sharing of benefits. If these forests still exist (when so many others have been destroyed) it is precisely thanks to (and not in spite of) the presence of indigenous peoples."

It had seemed as though the world took greater interest in the preservation of Panamá’s rainforests than did the country itself. In fact, much of the conservation efforts on behalf of the Darién have been made possible by the financial support of international organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Agency for International Development, World Wildlife Fund—U.S., and World Wildlife Fund—U.K., among others.

Commerce requires transportation routes. About one-third of Panamá’s roads are paved. The major road is a section of the Pan American Highway, a 29,525-mile route from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.
The concept of linking North and South American with a viable transportation corridor had sprung up in the late 1800s. By 1940, more than 60% of the highway between the U.S. and Panamá had been completed.

The highway penetrated Darién Province in 1973. Still an unpaved road, it reached and ended at the small, but busy commercial stopover of Yaviza in 1984, just 24 kilometers from the National Park. The Darién Gap, as it is now known, is the missing link in the transcontinental highway.

Deliberately left incomplete to help control drug trafficking and cross-border crime, the Gap stretches from Yaviza through 107 kilometers of dense jungle to the other side of the Colombian border. But despite the outcry of indigenous peoples, secondary roads have already opened some of the Darién’s interior. A rainforest means lumber.

According to a Smithsonian Institution study, Darién lumber has been an important export, and the wetland areas have been prime logging sites. But logging isn’t the only intrusion on the rainforest’s residents.

This same study also contends that an increasing number of colonists from western Panamá “disrupt cultural values of the indigenous peoples of the Darién.” The Wounaan and Emberá manage only small agricultural plots, mostly along rivers and streams and conduct limited hunting. Their impact on the rainforest remains relatively low.

A Smithsonian fact sheet summarizing results of its field study states: “The construction of the Pan American highway through part of [indigenous peoples’] homeland has resulted in deforestation and colonization by outsiders. With their traditional resource base eroded, indigenous villages near the highway are finding other ways to survive. Producing a sustainable income from the intact rainforest, tagua and other natural, non-timber forest products (NTFP) can provide both stability for rural people and an alternative to rainforest destruction.”

The Wounaan and Emberá peoples, who share the Darién with pockets of Kuna Indians, not only learned to live off this land in what is one of the most remote territories in the hemisphere, but they’ve also learned to rely on NPFP as a primary income source. They weave natural fiber baskets—the highest quality found anywhere in the world, according to some collectors and museum curators. Opening the Darién could change all that.

“Paving to Yaviza is OK,” says master weaver Alina Itucama, thoughtfully, “But not all the way to Colombia.” Itucama, 35, is one of 75 master artists selected from around the globe to participate July 17-18 in the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market 2004 (SFIFAM).