Overview

Panama is home to five indigenous semi-autonomous indigenous territories (comarcas) and several protected areas, including the well-known Darién National Park. However, the government has yet to recognize a number of the customary lands of the Bri Bri, Embera, Guna, Naso, and Wounaan peoples, because of their location in, or proximity to, protected areas. The Ministry of Environment has held up titling for over two years, with more than two-thirds of current indigenous land claims pending due to overlaps. The situation has become a major bottleneck in the recognition of indigenous land rights in Panama. This case study focuses on the overlap between indigenous lands and protected areas in the Darién, particularly the Darién National Park.

Background​

Indigenous lands comprise about 60 percent of the remaining forest cover in Panama, mainly in the Darién, which has a forest cover of more than 70 percent—demonstrating, as elsewhere, the effectiveness of Indigenous Peoples in protecting forests. Nationally, 56 percent of all lands in parks and reserves overlap with indigenous territories, both titled and untitled.[1] For the comarcas, this has resulted in restrictions and even conflict, despite a lack of park staff, resources, and agreed management plans, particularly related to community forestry.[2] For lands awaiting title, the situation has led to increases in land invasions, deforestation, and violence. 

Panama’s 1998 law on the environment, which created the National System of Protected Areas,[3] was revised in March 2015 to establish the Ministry of Environment.[4] The revised law re-establishes certain articles that had been excised in 2003, including some that would allow the co-management of protected areas.[5] The revision did not, however, re-establish provisions to guarantee the consent of Indigenous Peoples in the creation and management of protected areas. Law No. 80/2009 regulates titling on coastal lands.[6]

Executive Decree No. 59, passed in 2016, allows for and regulates co-management in the protected-area system.[7] The decree was made without adequate consultation with the indigenous movement, however, and focuses more on co-management with outside entities such as non-governmental organizations and businesses than on co-management with indigenous communities. 

The Alto Darién Protection Forest was established in 1972 as a strict conservation area.[8] It was augmented and reclassified as the Darién National Park in 1980[9] and recognized as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Biosphere Reserve in 1981. At approximately 575,000 ha, the park is the largest protected area in the Darién. The National Institute for Renewable Natural Resources was the original manager, and today the park is managed by the Ministry of Environment. From its beginning, the park has received financial and technical support from national and international organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Fundación Natura, and Asociación Nacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (ANCON).

​According to UNESCO:

"The property is also culturally and ethnically diverse, as evidenced by major archaeological findings, as well as Afro-descendants and Indigenous Peoples of the Embera, Wounaan, Kuna and others living within the property to this day. Darien National Park was groundbreaking by explicitly including a cultural dimension in the management and conservation of a protected area." [10]

Moreover, “Darien National Park is state-owned with customary tenure of the indigenous inhabitants accepted in a part of the property."[11] 

Indigenous lands

Panama’s national constitution guarantees indigenous collective land tenure. Article 127 states that: “The state will guarantee reserving the lands necessary to indigenous communities and their collective property in order to achieve their social and economic well-being. The Law will regulate the procedures that must be taken to achieve this goal, and corresponding delimitation [of lands], in which private appropriation of lands is prohibited.”[12]  

Panama has a long history of recognizing indigenous lands and territories, going back to the Guna Revolution and the creation of the first indigenous comarca in 1938. Four more comarcas were established in 1983 (Embera Wounaan), 1996 (Madugandi), 1997 (Ngabe Bugle), and 2000 (Wargandi). Outside these five comarcas, however, indigenous lands in Panama remained without any form of legal protection until 2008, when, thanks to pressure from the indigenous movement, Law No. 72 was passed.[13] This law allows for the recognition of collective lands (“tierras colectivas”) outside the comarca system. Enabling legislation (Executive Decree No. 223/2010) was passed in 2010,[14] laying out the steps needed for titling these lands under the National Authority for Land Administration in Panama (ANATI). Despite the new law and procedures, however, the government has been slow to act, with only five tierras colectivas titled since 2010: Puerto Lara and Caña Blanca (2012); Piriati (2014); Ipeti (2015), thanks to an Inter-American Court case;[15] and Arimae (2015). Another 24 tierras colectivas remain without title, most of which are in the Darién and have some kind of overlap with protected areas. 

Under Article 13 of Law No. 72/2008, the role of the Ministry of Environment in the titling process is to: “coordinate strategies and actions to execute sustainable-use plans for the use of natural resources and community development with the traditional authorities of each community, should the lands requested be part of the National Protected Area System.”[16]  

Article 5 of Executive Decree 223/2010 describes the titling process in more detail. Regarding protected areas, it states that: “In cases where the map [of a tierra colectiva] includes areas corresponding to protected areas, before it is approved, it will be sent to the National Environmental Authority for its no objection (visto bueno).”[17]  

In 2016, Panama passed a consultation law, Law No. 37/2016, which provides for free, prior, and informed consent for any legislative or administrative measures that affect the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples, including lands, territories, resources, ways of life, and culture.[18] The law took effect on June 30, 2017.​

Existing situation

The map shows that deforestation in eastern Panama occurred predominantly outside customary indigenous lands in 2000–2014. The deforestation rate on titled and untitled customary indigenous lands combined was 1.82 percent. The rate was 1.38 percent on titled customary lands, slightly outperforming protected areas, where it was 1.42 percent. It is worth noting that the deforestation rate outside indigenous territories was higher (6.6 percent) than it was outside protected areas (4.2 percent). The Ministry of Environment, however, has blocked the titling of indigenous lands that overlap with protected areas.

Since the passage of Law No. 72/2008, most Embera, Guna, and Wounaan communities in the Darién have requested titles to their lands. The lands lying in—and near—the Darién National Park have so far been denied title due to overlaps (with either the park itself or its buffer zone), with the Ministry of Environment holding back titling requests since late 2015. Land title requests are pending for the communities of Aruza, Bajo Lepe, Majé Drua, Mercadeo, Pijibasal, and Rio Hondo/Platanares, which all have some overlap with a protected area. In March 2018, thanks to pressure from indigenous organizations, the Ministry of Environment gave its provisional approval to titling these communities— conditional on additional inspections and sustainable-use plans. Time will tell if this moves the titling process forward, and whether the conditions are acceptable and sustainable-use plans are based on customary use and community vision.

Financial information related to the case

Financial support for the establishment and management of the Darién National Park has come from a variety of sources, both national and international. In 2004, the governments of Panama and the United States of America signed a debt-for-nature swap, creating a fund to support the management of the park. The swap included contributions of US$1.3 million from The Nature Conservancy and US$6.5 million from the United States government, in exchange for US$10.9 million of Panama’s external debt. The resulting Darién Fund (“Fondo Darién”) is overseen by the Ecological Trust of Panama (Fideicomiso Ecológico de Panamá), administered by Fundación Natura,[19] and executed on the ground by Group for Sustainable Environmental Education and Management (Grupo para la Educacion y el Manejo Ambiental Sostenible), a Panamanian non-governmental organization (NGO).[20] Another Panamanian NGO, ANCON, has also provided significant support.[21]

The table shows Darién National Park management expenditure for 2007–2015; it likely excludes certain funds contributed by NGOs or from ministerial budgets. The table includes the amounts spent on strengthening community organizations and a small grants fund on the assumption that these amounts are related to working with communities in the park. Other expenses cover park administration and management, as well as financial administration.