The conscious traveler: A push for more sustainable tourism in Guna Yala

By Mihiro Shimano

Photo by Samantha Zagha | The island of Asseryaledub, one of the most popular tourist designations among the 38 island communities with the 365 Guna Yala islands.

GUNA YALA, Panama – The propeller of the boat engines carrying tourists is slowing to a chug as they pass by an island inhabited by a Guna community. Houses with makeshift roofs are covering almost every inch of the island, some held up by stilts planted in the water. Motorboats must slow down when they pass these islands to avoid a large wake that may flood houses perched on the edges. 

Further, in the distance, there is another island, Asseryaledab, but it is marked instead with coconut palms and surrounded by white sand. Aside from the traditional-style cabanas that tourists can rent for overnights, the island contains one restaurant, an outdoor common area and bathroom facilities. This uninhabited island, and several like it, are where tourists visit and stay while in Guna Yala.

Although tourism is not the main industry here, which for now is still exporting coconuts and fish, it is one of the main sources of income for the Guna community. And both the federal government and locals hope it will grow significantly in the years ahead.

In 2020, Autoridad de Tourismo de Panamá, or ATP, which is Panama’s tourism authority, debuted the Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism (PMTS), which attempts to make Panama a world-class sustainable tourism destination by 2025. This includes preserving and sharing a cultural and historical heritage with tourists through community-based tourism as well as teaching and experiencing the biodiversity that Panama has to offer. 

Guna Yala is one of the destinations that ATP hopes to target, capitalizing on its beach and aquatic experience located on the Caribbean coast, as well as through the presence of the Guna community. Some of the proposals include potential small cruises of up to 250 passengers that could stop at Guna Yala and promote sustainable sport fishing and snorkeling. 

However, according to the plan, the biggest hurdles to this development in Guna Yala are weak coordination between the General Guna Congress and the Panamanian national government, as well as a lack of infrastructure for tourism on the islands and a lack of training among the Guna community on hospitality for tourists. 

Photo by Mihiro Shimano | The Guna Museum on Garti Sugdub was created in 1989 by Delfino Davies’ father. This sign was created in English to attract tourists to the island.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, ATP made an agreement with the General Guna Congress, which is the decision-making authority in this indigenous region, on implementing sustainable tourism in Guna Yala. The pandemic stalled the plan, as tourism dollars diminished to zero for almost two years. But today, according to Guna rangers stationed at the checkpoint station to enter the territory, anywhere from 300 to 600 tourists on average pass through every day, and the numbers are continuing to rise.  

“Indigenous tourism is almost a new thing for Panama. We don’t have any policy about it right now,” said Gilberto Alemancia, a liaison between indigenous comarcas for ATP and former president of the tourist commission for the Guna Congress. “The government, especially ATP … they offer support to them. But the one problem is, we don’t have the money for that.”

Guna tourism

In 2019, tourism made up 14.9% of Panama’s GDP, increasing steadily each year, but tourism in indigenous communities remains a small portion of that, according to Alemancia.

“[GDP of indigenous tourism] is very, very small because [these communities] are working for themselves, and nobody needs to support them or help them,” said Alemancia about Panama’s  self-governing, self-sufficient Guna Yala community. 

In 1938, following the Guna Revolution of 1925, the Guna community gained sovereignty over their land, which meant they were able to have control of the process of tourism in their territory. Their territory spans approximately 247 acres, with 365 islands and 38 island communities. Each island that accepts tourists is run by a collection of families. 

When the Guna community first began receiving tourists, it was not welcomed by everyone; some were concerned that the introduction of tourism would lead to a loss of the Guna culture.  

“Some people didn’t agree with tourism, some people did,” Vasquez said. “Some [leaders still] say that because of tourism and because of technology, maybe we are losing our culture little by little.”

Now, most Guna people are on board with accepting tourists, according to Lenin Vasquez, a Guna tour operator who works to curate tours in Guna Yala, though he notes that most of the tourism is focused on the smaller islands not inhabited by Guna communities. Tourists who visit the San Blas islands, the Spanish name for the islands in Guna Yala, can expect to find tour packages with photos of white sand, clear oceans and palm trees. 

Arnulsio Fernandez, who works as a boat operator and supervisor of the island Asseryaledab, said he began seeing people visiting the island between 2003 to 2005, but it was not until 2015 that Guna administrators began organizing and creating infrastructure for tourists to visit and stay.

“Our income is from tourism,” Fernandez said in Guna, the language specific to this indigenous region. “So we try to be clean with our facilities and also expand the facilities, including the number of cabins available.” 

Photo by Mihiro Shimano | The owner of the Guna Museum on Garti Sugdub, Delfino Davies, sits in a plastic chair inside the museum.

Tourists are also able to visit famous attractions including the sunken ship on the island named Assudub Bipi and Pelican Island, where the Netflix show “Money Heist” was filmed.

But the islands were not always the picturesque Caribbean scenes that are depicted today. Originally mangrove forests, they were transformed by the Guna people during the mid-19th century into coconut farms, the fruit from which was used as currency.

Starting from around the 1930s until around 2004, when Guna Yala was primarily only accessible by water, many large cruise ships, mainly European and American, would pass by the islands, bringing up to 3,000 tourists a day through Garti Sugdub, the most visited island community in Guna Yala. Most of the tourism in Guna Yala takes place on a cluster of islands known as the Garti area. 

“All the [Guna] ladies from different islands, every time they would come to sell the molas [to the tourists]. You could see it hanging in the palm trees, it was very colorful,” said Alemancia, who lived on the island as a young boy. Molas are traditional embroidered pieces of fabric worn as clothes by Guna women; for tourists, they are usually made into squares.

Tourists are still able to enter the territory via primarily small sea vehicles such as catamaran, but since 2008, Guna Yala has been accessible via a road from the mainland to the checkpoint, the only official way to enter the territory by land. Due to a lack of infrastructure to maintain the road, there are now enormous potholes scarring its length and making it a challenging drive of almost two hours for those unfamiliar with it. As a result, visitors usually hire Guna drivers to make the trek.  

Cultural heritage through community tourism

Underneath a stilt house, deep inside a winding neighborhood path, lies the “Kuna Museum” of Garti Sugdub. Artifacts ranging from paintings to everyday tools used in the Guna culture line the makeshift shelves that hang from the side of the partition between houses. 

At the entryway, there is a sign repurposed from a television satellite dish that reads in English, “Welcome to our Kuna museum – Culture, tradition, custom art, history, roots and origin of the Kuna people.” Inside is Delfino Davies, standing in front of a large flag with yellow, red and green stripes, and a pair of muscular-looking arms. It is the Guna revolution flag. 

In English, he demonstrates how the different objects housed in his museum work when he pulls out a conch shell and blows into it, blasting short loud horn-like noises. The conch shell, according to Delfino Davies, is used as an alarm in the morning and to alert if a storm is headed toward the island. 

The museum, or culture house as Delfino Davies calls it, is run by both him and his brother,  Deliano Davies. However, it was created in 1989 by his father, who was the first interpreter of the tradition on the island. The original intentions of his father were to create a place where the local community could learn about Guna history and traditions, but Delfino Davies saw it also as an opportunity to share their culture with tourists.

“We like tourists because the tourists help us remember the culture, the traditions,” said Delfino Davies, leaning back on a red plastic chair in the shade. “Foreign tourists make the Guna remember the culture … they want to see ceremonies, the culture, traditions.”

One of the objectives of the 2020 sustainable tourism plan is to focus on increasing the value and impact that tourists bring rather than simply increasing the number of tourists visiting each area. It also includes efforts to immerse tourists in different cultures through the help of the communities. 

The plan acknowledges that although the Guna community is known for its handicrafts such as molas as well as its gastronomy and folklore, the Guna tourism management mostly focuses on the beach aspect of Guna Yala, which limits the authentic experiences for visitors.   

Photo by Samantha Zagha | Tourists usually want to visit the Guna Yala islands to experience the serene beaches, like this one on Asseryaledub.

Many of the tour packages include island hopping for a few days at approximately $400 to $500. They mostly highlight the beach experience that visitors can expect on these islands. For additional costs of around $40 per island visit, tourists are also able to visit the Guna communities and experience their culture and way of life. 

“Some tourists who visit the island want to see the Guna culture and they even pay for these experiences, like watching the traditional dance,” Marlon Fernandez said in Spanish, as some of the other men working on Asseryaledab observe him from a distance. 

Fernandez is the current administrator of the island Asseryaledab, one of the uninhabited islands where visitors can stay. On top of his school studies, Fernandez also received a bachelor in tourism, a program offered at the school in Garti Sugdub, which taught him subjects like French, English and geographic tourism. As a result, he said he can talk and interact better with tourists who visit. 

“It is very important to me that the [tourists] are happy,” Fernandez said. “The tourists are curious about [the Guna people] and ask us many questions.” 

Immi Okell and Camilla Broster, 18-year-old gap-year students from England, were sitting in early June on one of the benches in the dining cabana on Asseryaledab, illuminated by the fluorescent overhead lights. They were on the first leg of their backpacking trip of the summer, before returning to start their respective universities in England.  

The pair planned to island hop in Guna Yala for four days. They booked their trip through a tour package that allowed them to stay on four different islands, with an activity embedded each day. On this day, they had learned from a local tour guide about the hospital and school on Asseryaledab and interacted with the children there. 

Having just come from another island where charging a phone for the evening from the limited electricity cost them $2 each, they are in awe at the less commercialized Asseryaledab. But this is their first and only night on this island, as they will move onto another the next day. 

“[We heard] the San Blas islands were one of the safest places to be because the indigenous community here, their communities are so tight,” Okell said, looking at Broster who nodded in agreement. “All of the people here have definitely been so welcoming and nice,” she added. “I like that [the islands] are picturesque but we are still interacting with the culture as well.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *