FSC Indigenous Foundation to Implement Community Program in Four Indigenous Communities in the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé in Panamá

Tolé, Chiriquí, Panamá – June 2025

FSC IF

The FSC Indigenous Foundation (FSC-IF) will serve as the implementing partner of a newly established community program designed to support the livelihoods and well-being of four Indigenous Ngäbe communities in Panama: Kiad, Nuevo Palomar, Quebrada Caña, and Quebrada de Plata.

This initiative arises as a result of a dialogue process between these communities, representatives of the Movimiento 10 de Abril (M10), their advisors (SOMO, Both Ends, and ACD), and the Development Finance Institutions of Germany (DEG) and the Netherlands (FMO). This dialogue was prompted by a formal complaint submitted in 2014 to the Independent Complaints Mechanism (ICM) of DEG and FMO by M10 and the General Cacica of the Ngäbe-Buglé Comarca, in relation to the impacts of the Barro Blanco hydroelectric project.

The dialogue culminated in a joint agreement, signed in June 2025, and the co-creation of a community program addressing essential needs, such as access to water and sanitation, transportation, electrification, home improvements, education, livelihoods, and cultural preservation. All elements of this agreement were discussed and validated through a participatory process in each community.

The FSC Indigenous Foundation was chosen by the parties to implement the program based on its recognized track record of working alongside Indigenous Peoples in Panama and worldwide. The Foundation’s role will be to ensure that the commitments outlined in the agreement are fulfilled through a culturally sensitive, participatory, and transparent implementation process over the course of two years, beginning in July 2025.

Our Guiding Principles: Respect, Consent, and Indigenous-Led Solutions

The FSC Indigenous Foundation is an Indigenous-led organization committed to upholding the rights of Indigenous Peoples and safeguarding their traditional knowledge, governance systems, and territories. We believe that Indigenous Peoples are the rightful stewards of Mother Earth’s forests and that Indigenous leadership is central to global sustainability efforts.

Our mission is to protect sacred landscapes and empower Indigenous communities through self-determined development. Our vision is a future where Indigenous rights are fully honored, Indigenous knowledge is integrated into global systems, and Indigenous Peoples lead actions to protect and restore the world’s forests.

In all our work, we uphold the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). This means that Indigenous communities have the right to decide—freely, in advance, and with full information—whether and how they wish to engage in development processes that affect their lands, territories, and lives. FPIC is not only a procedural step, but a cornerstone of Indigenous autonomy, dignity, and governance. We follow this methodology in every initiative we undertake, regardless of location or scale.

A Commitment to Dignity and Constructive Engagement

While the Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam has had lasting negative impacts on the affected Indigenous communities, this agreement reflects the determination of the Ngäbe Peoples to advocate for their rights and well-being. It is the result of their leadership and persistence in seeking solutions on their own terms.

The FSC Indigenous Foundation is honored to support the implementation of the resulting community program, carrying out this work with deep respect for the communities’ lived experiences and with a strong commitment to transparency, dignity, and Indigenous self-determination.

Our approach is grounded in dialogue, mutual respect, and Indigenous self-determination. We thank the communities of Kiad, Nuevo Palomar, Quebrada Caña, and Quebrada de Plata, M10 representatives, and all involved parties for their trust, and we remain committed to walking alongside them in this process.

Communications contact

If you want to collaborate with the FSC Indigenous Foundation, please email:

María De León

Head of Communications

m.deleon@fsc.org

The process of strengthening the traditional governance of the Indigenous Peoples of Panama continues

Four Indigenous territories in Panama initiated a process of collective elaboration of new Organic Charters and Internal Regulations.

FSC-IF

Started in October 2022, the traditional authorities of four Indigenous territories in Panama (Comarca Naso Tjër Di, Comarca Kuna de Madungandi, the Emberá and Wounaan Collective Lands of Darién, and the National Congress of the Wounaan People) began a process to strengthen their territorial governance systems through the collective drafting of new Organic Charters and Internal Regulations.

For Indigenous Peoples an Organic Charter and Internal Regulations is a legal document that organizes and establishes: 1) Criteria for the election of local, regional or general authorities; 2) Uses and rights over the land and the conservation of nature; 3) Social norms related to traditional and plant medicine; and 4) Mechanisms that ensure gender parity in the representation of authorities.

In May 2023, the four territories that initiated these processes have suceeded in validating the drafts of their Organic Charters and Internal Regulations before their local and general authorities and in the presence of government representatives.

The Kuna Comarca of Madungandi approved through an assembly/workshop the Internal Regulations of its General Congress in the community of Ibedi on May 10, with the participation of 50 sahilas (local Kuna authorities) and their argar (interpreters of the sahilas).

Act of validation of the Internal Regulations of the Tuira Region of the Emberá, Wounaan and Eyabida Collective Lands of Darién, community of Pijibasal.

A week later, the same process was carried out in the community of Pijibasal in the province of Darien, in the Regional Congress of the Tuira, which belongs to the Embera and Wounaan Collective Lands of Darien; with the participation of 50 local Embera, Wounaan and Eyabida authorities (known as Noko, Chi Pör and Buru according to each community).

Thirty people from the community also participated in both workshops, including children, youth, women and elders with a voice and vote to contribute to the disucssion, as the workshops are open to the general public.

COMARCA KUNA DE MADUNGANDI

In the last 8 months, the technical team of the Madungandi General Congress analyzed, together with sahilas and argar, more than 100 articles that establish, for example, the main functions of the community authorities (sahilas, argar and sualibed or community police), their reasons for dismissal and election, and developed the rights to land, hunting and family from the Kuna way of thinking.

To reach a consensus on the content of the document, two four-day workshops were convened between October and February 2022-2023, attended by more than 30 authorities and officials of the Madungandi General Congress, both of which were held in Akua Yala, the capital of the comarca.

A significant challenge was to transcribe all the procedures, functions, methods and other elements that already exist and are used by the Kunas of Madungandi into the final document that will be submitted to the Ministry of Government for approval.

View of the bridge over Lake Bayano from the Madungandi General Congress offices in the Akua Yala community.

Vista del puente sobre el lago Bayano desde las oficinas del Congreso General de Madungandi en la comunidad de Akua Yala.

EMBERÁ, WOUNAAN AND EYABIDA COLLECTIVE LANDS

In Panama, the title of Collective Lands is granted to Indigenous communities that were left out of a Comarca when the Comarcas were created. The title of Collective Lands represents the ancestral right to the sovereignty of their territory for the people who inhabit it.

Such is the case of the Emberá and Wounaan Collective Lands of Darién, where the Eyabida people have also been living for some years. The Eyabida were persecuted by the internal conflicts in Colombia, where they originate. The process of elaboration of the Internal Regulations of the Tuira Region served then as a propitious moment to officially establish the Eyabida People as inhabitants of the Collective Lands.

Law student Benicio Domicó participated in the last two workshops and his contributions from perspective of the Eyabida identity were essential in drafting the Internal Regulations.

At the workshops, first held in the community of Mercadeo in November 2022 and a second in the community of Bajo Lepe in March 2023, more than 30 traditional authorities, mostly Nokora (Emberá) and to a lesser extent Chi Pörnaan (Wounaan) and Burura (Eyabida), analyzed and interpreted the text that mandates ways to administer justice, certify authorities and marriages, establishes collective rights over the use of natural resources and restrictions on activities of outsiders within the territory.

REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN

Although there are few women in decision-making positions in both territories, the drafting of the Internal Regulations provided an opportunity for Emberá and Kuna leaders to create spaces where their proposals and needs could be heard within their General and Regional Congresses.

In Madungandi, a territory where there have not been any women Sahila, it was agreed that the women would have a representative in the General Congress, who would be elected by the women themselves and would have the right to speak and vote in the Congress.

In the Tuira Region, two key leaders participated in all the workshops: the deputy general cacique, Lucrecia Caisamo, and the Noko of the Pijibasal community, Lucia Flaco, who contributed to the consensus on issues related to land care, traditions, and the community economy.

From left to right: Pijibasal’s Noko, Lucía Flaco, talks with the deputy cacique general, Lucrecia Caisamo, during the workshops in the Bajo Lepe community.

DISPUTED TERRITORIES

The population of the Kuna Comarca of Madungandi and the Emberá and Wounaan Collective Lands of Darién have been strongly affected by megaprojects imposed on their territories.

Akua Yala, capital of Madungandi, is a relocated community. Their ancestral territory was completely flooded as a result of the construction of the Bayano Hydroelectric Dam in the 1970s. Likewise, the Alto Bayano Collective Lands, which include the communities of Ipetí and Piriatí Emberá in East Panama, were also relocated.

The disappearance of native forests and the poor quality of the land in the areas to which they were relocated has caused significant cultural losses. Without forests, these Peoples cannot practice or adequately transmit traditional knowledge about land use, medicinal plants, or ecosystem conservation.

Another example is the Bajo Lepe community, site of the second workshop, whose location is affected by the concession of 325,000 hectares from the State of Panama to the oil company Sinclair Panama Oil Corporation in 2018, as denounced by community members on the way to the workshop.

During the trip to the community of Pijibasal, one could see fields stripped bare by illegal and indiscriminate logging.

IMPACT OF THE PROJECT

The collective work of the communities to organize their governance and develop social, cultural, economic and conservation norms based on discussions open to the entire community have served to raise awareness among young people, local leaders, elders, and authorities about their rights as Indigenous Peoples.

Throughout the process of drafting the Organic Charters and/or Internal Regulations of the four territories benefiting from the Strengthening the Indigenous Agenda Project (FAIP), the communities demonstrated interest in knowing and understanding the rules that govern them.

FAIP aims to strengthen the political structures of the Comarca Naso Tjër Di, the Comarca Kuna de Madungandi, the Emberá and Wounaan Collective Lands of Darién, and the National Congress of the Wounaan People by drafting and publishing their organic charters or internal regulations.

FAIP is funded by USAID and FSC, implemented by the FSC Indigenous Foundation and framed within the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance for Rights and Development (IPARD) program, executed in coordination with AMPB, CMLT and AMARIE.

Comarca Naso Tjër Di continues the revision of its Organic Charter in Drudi

The Organic Charter is fundamental to legalize and recognize Indigenous Peoples’ rights in a territory

FSC-IF

The project Strengthening of the Indigenous Agenda of Panama (FAIP for its initials in Spanish) concluded the elaboration of the Organic Charter of the Naso Tjër Di Comarca (territory) on February 21st in the community of Drudi.

This process of revising the articles of the Naso Organic Charter began last October in the community of Sieyllik, the capital of the comarca. At that time, the project’s technical team reviewed more than half of the articles that make up the official document.

The Organic Charter organizes the method to elect authorities, the geographical limits of the comarca, the cultural organization of the Naso people, land use regulation, and relations between state institutions, among other topics.

During the five days of the workshop, the technical team, traditional authorities, experts in Naso culture and history, and community representatives agreed on several points of the Naso constitution.

“For us, it is a new world to start writing the Organic Charter. We had no idea what the Organic Charter was, but after researching, we discovered that it is a statute where the laws that regulate the coexistence and social peace of the Naso region are located. When we were given this challenge, I did not know what I was going to face, but I believe that we assumed it with responsibility.”
Yeraldin Villagra, teacher in the Comarca Naso

“We are securing our future generation so that we can conserve our identity and our natural resources.”
Reynaldo Alexis Santana, King of the Naso Comarca

FAIP is an inter-institutional and international effort that seeks to strengthen Indigenous governance in Panama through the elaboration and publication of Organic Charters of four Indigenous territories. We chose to use a methodology of workshops convened by the authorities and facilitated by a recognized expert in Indigenous Law, doctor in Peace, Conflict, and Democracy Alejandro Bonilla, where community members discuss various issues such as restorative justice, international law, and land systems.

About the community

The community of Drudi is settled on a plain surrounded by mountains and the Ganadera Bocas Livestock Company, about 45 minutes from Changuinola through extensive pastures for cows and horses that were created by deforesting the province.

Drudi was the scene of years of struggles between the community and Ganadera Bocas. At its peak, around 200 uniformed men broke into Drudi and burned the 20 houses that made up the settlement. The residents went to Panama City and slept in Santa Ana Park waiting for a response from the government.

Today the Naso Tjër Di Comarca celebrates two and a half years of having been recognized by the State, when President Laurentino Cortizo signed the Law creating the comarca in December 2020 and returned sovereignty over their land to the Naso people.

FAIP is funded by USAID and the FSC, implemented by the FSC Indigenous Foundation, and framed within the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance for Rights and Development (IPARD) Program, executed in coordination with the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB), the Coordinating Committee of Territorial Women Leaders (CMLT) and the Association of Women Artisans of Ipetí – Emberá (AMARIE).

Cultural references

Indigenous women of the Emberá Ipetí community preserve and share their ancestral knowledge

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Indigenous women are creators and guardians of culture, and their identity and belonging stem from this role. Recognition of identity and culture is crucial for the personal, social, and economic empowerment of Indigenous women.

“Our cultural value, our identity, our language, will not die. That our way of living does not die, that our dance does not die, that our hair does not disappear, that our water does not disappear, that our way of being does not disappear. So, that is why identity is very important, because we want to continue resisting. Because nobody will value us, nobody will recognize us, nobody will respect us, if we do not maintain our identity in order to resist,” says Omaira Casama, leader in the Emberá Ipetí community located in eastern Panama.

The FSC Indigenous Foundation, through the Indigenous Peoples Alliance for Rights and Development (IPARD) Program, is making a pioneering commitment to support the rescue of the cultural heritage of Indigenous Peoples. This project is part of the Economic Empowerment Plan for Indigenous Women of Panama (PEMIP 2025), developed by the Committee of Indigenous Women of Panama (CAMIP) and supported by the Government of Panama, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the FSC Indigenous Foundation.

To develop a methodology for the restoration of cultural references of the Indigenous Peoples of Panama and apply it in a first pilot project, we worked in co-creation with the women of the Emberá Ipetí community. ENRED Panama and Norlando Meza of TV Indígena supported this project.

Together we gathered a vision of the Emberá culture, based on the empowerment and self-determination of the women and men of the community. The community identified the thirteen priority cultural references to be mapped and documented in two focus group sessions, each lasting 6 hours, in which a total of 17 women and 4 men participated.

None of this work could have been accomplished without the community, its traditional governments and representatives, and without their free, prior, and informed consent.

Everything is collective

An important element of the Emberá culture is that everything is collective, including the process to restore cultural practices. “Starting with the spiritual theme and the vision that spirituality teaches us, is that our way of living is collective,” explains Omaira.

“We cannot only see a theme of cultural rescue with a single woman or a single young woman or a single man. Because what we live is a collective coexistence. The food is not cooked by just one woman, it is cooked by all the women who come to talk, to tell that story and it is always the adolescents and the girls who are learning, so that is why it also has to do with a process of sharing, with a process of teaching and with a process that the food we are giving is healthy, that everything is natural.”

Embera face and body painting is linked to their cosmovision. It is one of the most important manifestations of their culture. Painting each other’s skin expresses the relationships between the members of the community, where each plant, each animal, and each element has a place in their cosmovision and a reason for being.

Methodology and database

The methodology developed in the pilot project presents a tool to provide Indigenous women with an organized and authentic vision of their culture to enhance social cohesion, transmission to youth, communication, and generation of economic activity.

The guide establishes three main categories of cultural references:

The body
The structures and dynamics of community life
Relationships in the territory and with the land of their ancestors.

Everything points to a continuum between nature and culture, natural order and social order, and individual and community. In addition, time and the calendar occupy a prominent place as a meta-element. Time, in this case, is presented as the way to move forward, to develop the rescue of cultural references.

We also produced twelve audiovisual references of the Emberá Ipetí community with accompanying texts and created a Database of Cultural References of the Indigenous Peoples of Panama where these resources are classified and can be accessed.

In this series of videos, the women of the community explain and demonstrate their knowledge, including:

Baby ritual (Warrazaque)
Cultural house (Wera de)
Rice ball (Bododji)
Collection of chunga (Iwa / Nawal, Jupijapa, Carludovica palmata)
Dyeing of the chunga (Iwa Zoadia)
Senora Nely’s basket (Hösig di)
Body painting (Kiparada Odia / Jawa)
Preparation of pumpkin (Zan Dodi Karea)
Preparation of corn (Be badia)
Preparing the sacred space (Dau Zadia Jaibana)
Opening of the room (Chimbombom / Karidia Werada)
Spiritual cleansing (Dau Zadia)

Watch the videos here: (in Spanish)

“We Indigenous women need organizations, like the [Indigenous] Foundation, that give us hope, that give us confidence to continue challenging the process of social construction of Indigenous women, because many times when we do not have that confidence, we do not have those strategic allies. There are many people who continue speaking on behalf of Indigenous women and that is what we are not looking for. Maybe we have been able to reach their thoughts and their hearts and to be able to implement this great project of the needs and aspirations of Indigenous women, so that this knowledge can be transmitted from generation to generation,” says Omaira.

Future pilots will be carried out with other Indigenous communities of Panama to expand the Database of Cultural References and involve more Indigenous women in the cultural restoration process for empowerment, the transmission of knowledge to future generations, and for the promotion of economic activity.

There are different forms of cultural houses: the bat house, with a trunk in the center, representing men, and the women’s house, without a trunk because the women support themselves collectively. For the Emberá community it is important to take good care of nature and build the house with love, for the good of the new generations.