"Island in Panama on the Brink of Disappearing - Government Prepares for Evacuation!"

 Panama On a small island off Panama's Caribbean coast, about 300 families are packing their belongings in preparation for dramatic change. Generations of Gunas who grew up in Gardi Sugdub and devoted to the sea and tourism will trade it next week for solid ground on the mainland.

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They went voluntarily – sort of.

The Gunas tribe in Gardi Sugdub is the first of 63 communities along Panama's Caribbean and Pacific coasts that government officials and scientists predict will be forced to relocate due to rising sea levels in the coming decades.

On a recent day, the island's natives rowed or stuttered on outboard motors in search of fish. Children, some in uniforms and some wearing colorful local textiles called “molas”, chatter as they rush along the narrow, winding dirt roads on their way to school.

“We are a little sad, because we will leave the houses that we have known all our lives, their connection to the sea, where we fished, where we bathed and where the tourists came, but the sea is sinking. the island is little by little,” said Nadín Morales, 24, who is preparing to move with her mother, uncle and boyfriend.

An official at Panama's Housing Ministry said that some people had decided to stay on the island until it was no longer safe, without disclosing the exact number. Authorities will not force them to leave, said the official, who declined to be named when discussing the matter.

Gardi Sugdub is one of around 50 inhabited islands in the Guna Yala region archipelago. It is only about 400 yards (366 meters) long and 150 yards (137 meters) wide. From above, it looks roughly like a spiked oval surrounded by dozens of short docks where residents tie up their boats.

Every year, especially when strong winds hit the sea in November and December, water fills the roads and enters homes. Climate change is not only causing sea levels to rise, it is also warming the oceans and triggering stronger storms.

The Guna tribe has tried to strengthen the edges of the island with rocks, stakes and coral, but the sea water continues to flow.

“Recently, I see climate change having a big impact,” Morales said. “Now the tide is reaching unprecedented levels, and the heat is unbearable.”

The Guna tribe's autonomous government decided two decades ago that it needed to consider leaving the island, but at that time it did so because the island had become too crowded. The impact of climate change is accelerating that thinking, said Evelio López, a 61-year-old teacher on the island.

He plans to move with his relatives to a new location on land developed by the government at a cost of $12 million. The concrete houses sit on a paved road carved out of lush tropical forest, just about a mile (2 kilometers) from the port, and an eight-minute boat ride takes them to Gardi Sugdub.

Leaving the island was “a big challenge, because for more than 200 years our culture came from the sea, so leaving this island had a huge meaning,” López said. “Leaving the sea, the economic activities we carried out there in the long term of the island, and now we will be on solid land, in the forest. We will see what the results are in the long term.”

Steven Paton, director of the Smithsonian Institution's physical monitoring program in Panama, said the steps ahead "are a direct consequence of climate change through sea level rise."

“The islands are only half a meter above sea level on average, and as sea levels rise, sooner or later the Guna will almost certainly have to abandon them all by the end of the century or earlier.”

“All coastal areas around the world are being impacted by this at different rates,” Paton said.

Residents of a small coastal community in Mexico moved inland last year after hurricanes continued to claim their homes. Governments are being forced to take action, from the lagoon city of Venice in Italy to the coastal communities of New Zealand.

A recent study conducted by the Climate Change directorate of the Panamanian Ministry of the Environment, with support from universities in Panama and Spain, estimates that by 2050, Panama will lose approximately 2.01% of its coastal area due to sea level rise.

Panama estimates it will cost about $1.2 billion to relocate the 38,000 or so residents who will face rising sea levels in the short and medium term, said Ligia Castro, climate change director at the Environment Ministry.

In Gardi Sugdub, women who make the intricately embroidered molas worn by Guna women hang them outside their homes when finished, trying to attract the attention of visiting tourists.

This island and others along the coast have benefited over the years from year-round tourism.

Braucilio de la Ossa, deputy secretary of Carti, the port overlooking Gardi Sugdub, said he planned to move with his wife, daughter, sister-in-law and mother-in-law. Some of his wife's relatives will live on the island.

He said that the biggest challenge for those who migrate is the change in lifestyle, moving from the sea to land even though the distance is relatively small.

“Now that they are in the forest, their way of life will be different,” he said.

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