Feature Article

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

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

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 non-timber forest products (NTFP) 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, was one of 75 master artists selected from around the globe to participate in the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market 2004 (SFIFAM).

She and her Emberá husband, Obdulio Isarama Aji, now live near Panamá City but make the arduous journey to Darién villages—many of which are accessible only by dugout canoe and river travel—about once a month. Tirelessly, they work with Wounaan and Emberá weavers (as well as with skilled male carvers) to help promote this art form and bring the artisans’ products to market.

The couple says that it’s their mission to help their people build a strong economic base. They believe that achieving financial security translates not only to more secure family units, but also to a greater potential for indigenous people to protect their valuable rainforest resources.

Paving the often-washed-out dirt road to Yaviza, Itucama explains, would make travel much easier from Panamá City and its outskirts to more remote villages splintered off the highway. “But beyond that, it’s…well…it’s rainforest.”

Santa Fe photographer Lorran Meares, invited presenter at the January 2004 Wounaan Congreso, spoke on the issues of conservation and preservation by indigenous peoples. Throughout the Congreso, tribal representatives emphatically voiced their concern that completion of the Pan American Highway literally would pave the way for “more Colombian guerilla activity, drug trafficking, logging and destruction of the rainforest.”

Meares and his wife, Charlotte, are sponsors for Itucama at the SFIFAM, where she’ll demonstrate weaving techniques that have defined this art form. From 5-7 p.m., July 16, the William Siegal Galleries, 135 West Palace Ave., will host a reception in her honor, concurrent with the gallery’s opening show of Hösig Di baskets.

Both Meares are teaming to chronicle the development of the basket-making art form for a book and educational video. For nearly two decades, the couple has been active in the preservation of Native American sacred sites (see “Who we Are”). It was from that perspective that they became empathetic toward the indigenous peoples of the Darién.

There are many ways to stop the Pan American Highway, a handful of representatives told Meares during his January interview. Though they each felt that Darién peoples would “have a right” to sabotage giant earth-mover machinery to protect their cultures and traditional life-ways—actions reminiscent of the Monkey Wrench Gang—the small group concurred that non-violent intervention is preferable.

“I would rather get a brujo to stop them!” blurted one man. The rest nodded in agreement. “A brujo working with the spirits could be much more powerful than the machines,” he said, his voice brimming with confidence.

According to satellite photos, quotes a newsletter from the Rainforest Alliance, one of many global conservation non-profits, nearly 10,000 square miles of irreplaceable habitat—more than 6,000,000 acres—were destroyed throughout 2002 in Brazil’s famed Amazon alone. These figures startle Wounaan Congreso leaders.

The Smithsonian study validates their concerns. Among the threats to rainforest, the study shows, cattle-ranching ranks high. Ranching, it states, has contributed to the destruction of more than half of Central America’s jungle since the 19th century, with most of the conversion taking place in the last 50 years.

In a recent newsletter, the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), an intergovernmental organization promoting the conservation and sustainable management, use and trade of tropical forest resources, states that the main threat to the Darién comes from deforestation, “as colonist fronts move into the province following logging roads and other access points. …In the dry season of 1998, assisted by the effects of El Nino, colonists’ fires escaped into 8,000 hectares of unexploited Darién forest.”

The encroachment of squatters and others on indigenous lands, “where communities lack land rights outside the legally recognized reservations and, therefore, are subject to the destructive activities of those who do not utilize nor value the non-timber forest products,” cannot be ignored, ITTO says.
Watchdog organizations are plentiful. Many lobby successfully for protection of earth’s fragile places and its indigenous peoples. Others speak loudly and carry a big stick.

In his opening address to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Roundtable on Intellectual Property and Indigenous Peoples, Geneva, July 23-24, 1998, Roberto Castelo spoke loudly:
"It is my hope that this Roundtable may advance appreciation and understanding of the fact that human creativity springs from many different sources of inspiration, and achieves expression in many different forms. I also hope that we may begin to see a path forward towards ensuring that the benefits of all human creativity, wherever and however generated and maintained, may be protected, respected and shared according to commonly recognized and respected principals."

That is also the hope of the Darien’s Wounaan and Emberá peoples. To preserve their intellectual property and rainforest homeland is to prolong their traditional culture. There is a sense of urgency, their leaders believe. The world must wake up—before the brilliant butterflies and flowers of this once pristine rainforest exist only as intricately woven designs on baskets like Itucama’s.