"Gardi Sugdub is a tiny island the size of five soccer fields with 1,300 inhabitants off Panama’s Caribbean coast. It has been home to Guna Indigenous people for over 100 years. However today, Gardi Sugdub faces new challenges. Floods and storms, in addition to a lack of space for expansion, have made life even harder on the island, affecting housing, water, health, and education. Such extreme weather is only expected to become more common as the climate crisis accelerates. While urgent government action can still mitigate the worst climate change scenarios, scientists are also virtually certain of a rise in sea levels globally, undermining the habitability of the island these residents call home. Facing these inevitable realities, the Gardi Sugdub community has been requesting government support for their relocation to a safer mainland site since 2010 .
Our work on the planned relocation of Gardi Sugdub led to recent concrete impact for the community. As a response to Human Rights Watch's July 2023 report noting insufficient community engagement, the vice minister of Panama’s housing ministry visited in October 2023 to hear community concerns. Thanks in part to Human Rights Watch's amplification of ongoing community-led advocacy, government ministries have made concrete improvements at the new site in the final months of 2023 and in early 2024. As of today, the relocation site on the mainland now has the planned 300 houses, cultural gathering centers, and a nearby school with sports facilities. The Gardi Sugdub community has still not moved, however, and Human Rights Watch continues to support community-led advocacy to ensure the government addresses gaps in water, sanitation and health services at the new site.
Gardi Sugdub is not alone: in Panama, it is the first of many communities seeking relocation in the face of sea level rise; it is also one of an estimated 400 globally that has completed or is undertaking relocation because of natural hazards, including those that are expected to become more common as climate change intensifies. Most people do not want to leave their homes, and international guidance considers planned relocations to be a measure of last resort after all strategies to adapt in place (such as elevating homes or constructing sea walls) are attempted and deemed inadequate. But “as climate risk intensifies, the need for planned relocations will increase,” according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Approaches to planning for relocation related to climate change that safeguard human rights, including rights to an adequate standard of living, housing, water, livelihoods, health, and education, are sorely needed.
The experiences of Gardi Sugdub provide important lessons to document and build upon in national planning. It is imperative that Panama get this case right to pave a smoother path for others in the future. In ongoing advocacy, Human Rights Watch is working to ensure the Panamanian government learns from this experience by consulting Gardi Sugdub community members and drafts a national policy to safeguard people’s rights in future climate-related, community-led planned relocations.
