UGGUBSENI and ISBERYALA, Guna Yala, Panama — “Our ancestors fought for this land,” says Jair Goporas, 21. He leans forwards into the dim glow of a bare bulb, his eyes shining from a face streaked with red and black paint. “Our ancestors told us: Don’t forget what happened here.”

In a square just outside the small concrete house Goporas sits in, shouts of celebration fill the air. The sun slips behind the hills of the mainland, and night falls on a crowd that flashes with scarlet body paint and the vivid colours of the traditional dress made of mola, a hand-made textile worn by the Indigenous Guna woman.

As one of the 2,500 inhabitants of the island of Uggubseni, located in the Guna Yala provincial-level Indigenous region, or comarca, of Panama, Goporas has been raised on stories of the past.

The island has spent the month of February participating in region-wide celebrations to mark the centenary of the Guna Revolution. During the bloody 1925 revolt, the Indigenous Guna expelled repressive Panamanian authorities and established their autonomy in the region. Today, Guna Yala remains an autonomous comarca with its own laws, though the Panamanian state retains its obligation to protect and support the region. A representative body, the Guna General Congress, controls access to Guna Yala, manages engagement with the Panamanian government, and prohibits most commercial activity by external businesses in the region. Each Guna community maintains its own local government, led by a chief known as a Saila.

On this day, Feb. 21, Uggubseni’s men have staged a community-wide reenactment of one of the revolution’s most violent episodes. Although the intervening century has left the Guna’s fierce independence undimmed, new existential threats have begun to encircle the island.

“This story was not only in 1925,” says Alina Vázquez, 25, who was born on Uggubseni. “Sadly, it’s happening again this century.”

Where once the residents of Uggubseni fought against repressive colonial police, they are now defending their culture and traditions on another front: The rising tides of climate change and overpopulation.

“It is almost a certainty that these islands are going to be underwater,” says Steve Paton, head of the physical monitoring program at the Ancon, Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He points to the accelerating sea level rise, a result of human-caused climate change, as a significant threat to the future habitability of the island. According to the institute, sea level rise has accelerated from 1.5 millimeters (0.06 inches) per year in the 1960s to 5.5 mm (0.2 in) per year in recent observations. “The expectation for the future is that more and more of these islands will be flooded during high tides,” Paton says.

In June 2024, Gardi Sugdub, another island in Guna Yala located three hours by boat from Uggubseni, made headlines when the Panamanian government relocated around 300 families from there due to overpopulation and rising sea levels to a new, $12-million community on the mainland known as Isberyala.

Although Gardi Sugdub is the only island to have been formally relocated, its predicament is not unique. Panama’s Ministry of Environment has identified 63 other communities nationwide that are at risk of sinking due to climate change.

One such community is Uggubseni.

“For me, the move is inevitable,” says Eligio Alvarado, 82, who was born on the island and has been advocating for a move inland for decades. “We have to prepare the population. Right now, they are very attached to this land — it’s difficult to separate them from their island. But I think they are realizing that it’s a necessity — this is reality.”

Yet, some residents view the idea of a move to the mainland as a cultural homecoming. “The colonizers drove us from the mainland — our origin is not on the islands,” says Uggubseni resident Horacio Arrosemena, 64. He’s referring to the transition of the Guna people from the Darien region to Guna Yala around 200 years ago. “All things return to their beginning in the end.”

Shouts of celebration and the rattle of firecrackers drown out the sound of the ocean lapping threateningly against Uggubseni’s shores.

Here, climate change has affected many facets of life. The islanders have had no option but to reinforce much of Uggubseni’s shoreline using coral dredged from nearby reefs, a practice that has taken its toll on local marine ecosystems. “Before, when we went out to fish, we would bring in about 6 or 7 boats of fish,” says Uggubseni resident Ovidio Guillem, a member of the Guna General Congress agriculture department. “Now it’s only one or half a boat.”

The root cause of this fish decline is unknown. The Smithsonian’s Paton speculates it could be down to overfishing, coral reef damage or temperature rise — or a combination thereof. Regardless, it is apparent that a changing environment is cutting short the habitability of Uggubseni.

Plastic bottles washed in from the sea now litter its once-pristine shores, a rising tide of waste that seems to confirm that this island cannot continue as a home for future generations.

“More waste is being produced than 20 years ago,” says Vázquez. “We don’t know where to leave it, where to throw it away.” Some residents are even afraid to bathe in the waters surrounding the island. “Before, you could swim — now, it’s dangerous to swim on our beaches,” says Vázquez. “We don’t know what type of contamination exists.”

Compounding these issues is Uggubseni’s rampant overpopulation. A steady population increase since the Guna first arrived on Uggubseni is now straining limited land and services. “Sooner rather than later, we have to move to the mainland,” says Alvarado, the octogenarian. “We do not fit. There is no space.”

For many on the island, this is not news. Alvarado, for example, has been involved in efforts to move the community since the early 1990’s. A consensus now exists that moving inland is necessary; the only impediment is a lack of funding and external support.

“If we have support, the first thing we will do is request to cross so that people can move on with their lives,” says Luis Layans, one of three Sailas on Uggubseni. “We will accept anything.”

As was the case on Gardi Sugdub, the residents of Uggubseni must rely on the government for this support, but it remains unclear whether it will deliver. “The population does not have the resources; the state has to supply the resources,” says Jaime Jované, Panama’s housing minister. “In a country like ours, with finite resources — both in terms of territory and financial liquidity — we need liquidity.”

Juan Carlos Monterrey, the environment ministry’s director of climate change, is more blunt: “The state does not have enough resources to be able to cover all of the necessities,” he says.

Uggubseni is also three hours further than Gardi Sugdub from the nearest port, deepening the financial and logistical barriers to relocation.

Monterrey points to a lack of defined process, combined with the disruption of a change in government last year, as factors further inhibiting Uggubseni’s relocation. “There is no defined process at a government level to get it done in a coordinated way,” he says. “Currently, in a formal capacity, we do not have any specific process within the Ministry of Environment to initiate a relocation.”

Monterrey notes that a proposed executive decree, currently under public review, may give the administration a legal mandate to establish the protocols required to carry out a relocation. “This is the first step toward having a standardized process to address the situation of climate-displaced persons, not only in Guna Yala but nationwide,” he says. “I hope that with the new protocol, Playón Chico [Uggubseni] will be one of the communities prioritized to initiate its application.”

The decree, though a step towards a more standardized process for future action, would not represent any concrete plans to move Uggubseni. And the only existing case study for such a move is Isberyala, the new community for ex-residents of Gardi Sugdub, which sets far from a perfect example.

Thin trails of smoke rise above the uniform roofs of Isberyala. Due to an inadequate waste management system, the residents must burn trash in open fires. The houses themselves have also drawn criticism. There’s the unreliable supply of running water that cuts off for hours at a time. And residents say the architectural style deepens their feeling of cultural dislocation: The box-like, city-style buildings bear little resemblance to the traditional houses on the islands, and their cramped internal layout makes it difficult to install the hammocks that have become synonymous with the Gunas’ island way of life.

The state has also come under fire for deforesting 11 hectares (27.2 acres) of protected forest to construct the community.

Some residents of Uggubseni are wary that the mistakes underlying such shortcomings may resurface in future relocations.

“If it happens like Isberyala, where their opinions were not taken into account and they were not asked how the streets should be built, what they needed, what type of material should be used, then there will be a negative impact,” says Vázquez. “The problems will arise if they do not take us into account.”

Both Jované and Monterrey say the new administration is determined to emphasize community involvement in any future relocation. However, concrete plans to relocate Uggubseni appear a long way from materializing.

While the future of their home remains uncertain, the Guna of Uggubseni are determined to celebrate their past.

Vázquez sits back in a plastic chair in her family home as the sounds of the centenary celebration continue to rage on outside. The red of her mola stands out sharply against the vivid green walls. Children skip in and out of the house, her family conversing in their native Guna. “We aren’t just retelling history,” she says, gesturing outside, “we are awakening as a people.”

Panama delays promised relocation of sinking island community

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