How an Indigenous Caribbean community is building resilience

The Guna use eco-taxes to protect their forests, feed their people and save their culture

Panama, January 2026 — At dawn, the Caribbean glows turquoise along Panama’s northeastern coast. Palm-fringed islands scatter across the horizon, backed by rainforest-draped mountains where mist still clings to the canopy.

This is Guna Yala —the autonomous Indigenous territory of the Guna people, a Caribbean archipelago of 365 islands and a narrow strip of mainland. A postcard-worthy landscape with no resorts in sight; just as the local communities want it. 

In the morning, cars headed for the coastline up in the lush foothills. Guna officers check the passports of pre-registered tourists and collect the eco-tax that makes up more than 70% of the territory’s income, alongside money from the sale of artisanal textiles and fishing.

The self-governing authority, or Guna General Congress, uses the money to take care of the land by combining ancestral knowledge, technical innovations and climate-smart approaches as part of a long-term community vision. 

That vision is translated into practical investments.

Ten per cent of the funds are used to promote food security as rain becomes more erratic, with agroforestry helping families boost productivity by integrating fruit trees and shrubs into their farms. An additional ten per cent of the funds are meant for safety and security: watch towers, remote sensing tools, and legal advisors that combat pressures like informal mining and logging in the forest, an ecosystem that underpins the survival of communities.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, nearly one-fifth of land — about 394 million hectares — is already degraded and, in Panama alone, more than 32 per cent of the land shows signs of degradation, making such community-led stewardship increasingly vital.

Across the entire region, record dry seasons are already straining rivers that communities depend on for food and transport — and the Guna are beginning to feel those same pressures.

Mitzi Arias, 28, is a local Guna expert devoted to screening projects that look to operate in the region. Only those that meet the basic criteria agreed upon by the Guna people move up to the General Congress for further assessment, she says. Those that do not respect community or environmental values are rejected.

“Building our economy on our own terms is what allows us to chart  our own development path,” explains Guna native Olo Villalaz, 42, who participated in the recent UNCCD meeting held in Panama, representing the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB). 

“Financial autonomy allows us to reject projects that do not align with the way we want to live and treat our land; for me, this is what is most important for Indigenous communities.” 

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A source of income for local communities, Guna-run artisanal textiles, depicting natural elements, are well-known.

Webcasting wisdom

For the Guna, another priority is preparing the youth to lead their people into a future marked by globalization and environmental change. Traditional knowledge on how to manage the land used to be transmitted strictly through songs chanted by the elders, as explained by general ‘cacique’ or leader of the Guna Yala region, Dumma Adriano Pérez. 

These chants include guidance on how to use water, forests and food in line with community values.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that seven out of ten youth leave for Panama City to study has shown the urgency to embrace new ways of passing knowledge on —a need made even more critical as the Guna population battles harsher droughts, land degradation and rising sea levels.

“Since the pandemic, we’ve been webcasting the chants and lessons of the elders —including on sustainable land management— so that the Guna youth can access it wherever they are,” says Villalaz, who notes they have also started registering that knowledge. “It has been a huge success, and it shows that, for our cultural identity to prevail, we need to harness technology and share messages that are reflective of the youth’s reality.” 

At the heart of Gardi Yandub, one of 49 Guna villages, stands a community centre built with straw and cane that keeps people cool even on the hottest days. Three hammocks act as a pulpit of sorts for Guna elders like Javier Morris Brown, 63, the traditional leader or ‘sagla’ of the island.

“We get everything from the land,” says Brown. “Trees alone provide us with materials for housing, medicines, food and even water. That is why we never cut down trees next to rivers, lest they run dry. This is what we strive to transmit to our youth: use nature wisely.”

Preparing for COP17

For Villalaz, the decision to engage with the UNCCD grew directly from what he sees at home —and from a gradual realization that his community’s challenges are part of a much larger global picture.

“We see the worsening effects of drought on our agriculture and the tensions between neighbors when wells dry up on the islands,” he says.

Initially, he did not see how a UN Convention to Combat Desertification was relevant to his region, given the apparent lushness of the landscape around him. That changed when he awoke to the full scope of the treaty, which includes addressing drought and the degradation of all types of land around the world.

Villalaz has long engaged with environmental negotiations; especially, on how financial flows should reach Indigenous territories. Now, he is helping the Guna participate in the UNCCD process through the establishment of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus, which will convene at the next meeting of the Convention’s 197 signatories, known as UNCCD COP17 in Mongolia in August 2026. 

“We see our ancestral territories suffering under attempts to expand monocultures, deforestation and extractive activities,” notes Villalaz. “We very much need to have a voice at COP17.”