We are flying over the Kuna Yala archipelago, a Garden of Eden set in the Caribbean Sea which is the pride of Panama. 365 intriguing coral islands make up what is one of the country’s most beautiful marine areas, the ancestral home of the emblematic Kuna people. Their ancestral lands include a 200 km strip of green, wild Atlantic coast in Panama’s eastern Caribbean region.
Kuna Yala is a unique indigenous region located very close to the northern sector of Panama’s border with Colombia. The Kuna people have a tradition of semi-autonomous political organization that is unlike any other ethnic group or community in Panama and they are self governing within their own territory. Here, most of the native population lives alone in the midst of hundreds of islands, according to their own laws and rules enacted and enforced by their councils of elders.
This area is still blessed with an abundance of natural treasures – impenetrable forests, wetlands teeming with life, coral reefs and mangroves that provide shelter for the young of many species.
Kuna Yala’s marine eco systems are considered to be among the most amazing in the Caribbean, and according to research carried out by Dr. Héctor Guzmán of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, they include a selection of coral reefs with very special complexity and biodiversity.
However, the region has not escaped the effects of coral extraction for landfill, pollution arising from overpopulation of the islands, not to mention overfishing and increased water temperature as a result of global warming. These cataclysmic events have brought about traumatic changes in the coral reefs.
Through all of this, its natural, ancestral magic endures and its combination of natural abundance and thousands of years of cultural richness represent its greatest attraction and potential for sustainable tourism.
Each year hundreds of travelers and sailors arrive in this ecotourism Mecca, a paradise where visitors cannot avoid being amazed at the beauty of this marine world, a world that has to be preserved.
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