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Children's
Environmental Education
Program: Kuna Yala, Panama, Phase II
September
4 2003
Marina Goreau
Director, Children to Children Program, Global Coral Reef Alliance
Thomas J. Goreau, Ph.D.
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance
Roque Solis
Technical Expert Advisor, Congresso General Kuna
SUMMARY
On July 27 2003
the first group of Kuna Indian children used masks, snorkels, and fins
donated to the Ukupseni village school, Kuna Yala, Panama, by the Global
Coral Reef Alliance Children to Children Environmental Education
Program. They looked at coral reef restoration programs carried out in
their village and learned about the need to restore the coral reefs and
fisheries in order to protect the future of their people. The program,
which has the strong support of the children, the school, the village
leaders, and the Kuna General Congress, will be greatly expanded as
quickly as funding can be found.
BACKGROUND
Ukupseni
Village (Playon Chico), Kuna Yala (San Blas), Panama
The Kuna people
of Panama are a sea people who are unique among Native Americans in
having preserved their cultural and political independence because they
have no roads into their land (Kuna Yala) and do not allow outsiders to
own anything in it. They are also exceptional in combining strong
devotion to tradition with a deep love of education and eagerness to
adapt the best aspects of modern scientific knowledge to solving their
sustainable development problems. Kuna Yala extends from the coral reefs
to the top of the mountain range separating the Atlantic form the
Pacific, and since there is no deforestation for cattle, their reefs are
the best in Panama. The economy of Kuna Yala is based on lobster
fisheries and women's handicrafts, especially their unique art form,
Molas. About 70% of Panama's marine food exports by value are lobster
and crabs from Kuna Yala. Because the mangroves along the shoreline are
intact, there is excellent habitat for juvenile lobsters. However
over-fishing of lobster and deterioration of coral reefs is causing
plummeting catches, threatening the economic future of the Kuna people.
Deterioration of coral reefs, rising sea levels, and an ancient
tradition of mining coral to expand their islands, are causing
increasing erosion of the 50 low lying islands that the Kuna live on.
Iskardup
Island, Kuna Yala, location of the projects in this report.
The Global Coral
Reef Alliance has been working closely with Kuna communities and
organizations on coral reef restoration, shore protection, fisheries
restoration, development of new approaches to lobster growing, and
children's educational projects since 1994. In 1996, Marina Goreau, then
6 years old, came up with the idea of setting up a program to provide
Kuna children with masks and snorkels so that they could learn about the
importance of protecting and restoring their coral reefs and fisheries
to secure their own future. Kuna children are marvelous swimmers from a
very young age, but because they cannot afford their own swimming gear,
they have little opportunity to see and learn about underwater life.
This idea grew into the GCRA Children to Children Program. In 2001, when
the Chiefs of Ukupseni village heard about Marina's idea they
immediately asked her to visit the school and talk to the children. For
three days the GCRA team talked to the children in the classrooms and
showed them films about coral reef management. Results of Phase I of the
program, with photographs, are presented on the GCRA web site at:
http://www.globalcoral.org/Children's%20Program.pdf
RESULTS
Kuna houses
in Ukupseni village.
By July 2003,
kind donations for the program, including from children who saved up
their pocket money to protect coral reefs, were used to buy 30 sets of
masks, snorkels, and some fins. These masks, snorkels, and fins were
brought to Kuna Yala and donated to the Ukupseni School to start Phase
II of the program, bringing environmental education of the children out
of the classroom and under the water. The diving gear will be used for
educational programs organized by the school, the Parents and Teachers
Association, and the Ukupseni Environmental Commission.
Because school
vacations were underway at the time, these groups arranged a special
group of children, aged 7 to 11 years old, to be the first to use the
underwater gear. Following a brief talk about the importance of
protecting their reefs and fisheries to ensure that they could continue
to live in the ancient traditions of their ancestors, the children
eagerly tried on the swimming gear. They then swam out to look at the
solar-powered dome-shaped underwater coral nursery which had been built
and installed at Sapibenega, the Kuna Eco-Lodge on Iskardup Island two
years before by the Global Coral Reef Alliance, the Asociacion Oceanica
de Panama, students from the school, and volunteers from the village.
The children had a wonderful time diving to look at the corals and fish
around the coral nursery, as can be seen from their delighted smiles in
the pictures below.
The children
and their instructors.
Masks ready
to try on, in front of solar panels powering the coral nursery.
Ready to swim
to the coral nursery
Swimming to
the coral nursery.
Maninigdidili
and Clarina explore life in the shallows.
Maninigdidili
and Clarina after their swim.
Happy
children on their way home. They are used to paddling in dugout canoes,
so a ride in an outboard powered inflatable boat was a special treat.
FUTURE WORK
The masks,
snorkels, and fins will be kept at the Ukupseni School for use in
educational programs involving all the village children. There is an
important need to work with the school to develop a field program that
trains the students in understanding the basic function of the coral
reef, mangrove, and seagrass ecosystems, the effects of human activities
on them, and how to manage them wisely. The next stage of the Program
should also seek to provide more educational materials for use in the
classroom (both in the Dule language, and in their second language,
Spanish, which is used for instruction in the higher grades as students
prepare for Panamanian national exams to qualify for university
entrance).
Ukupseni is one
of 50 Kuna villages, all of which have similar needs. Similar programs
should also be started in the other villages as quickly as funding can
be found. Funding should be sought to provide snorkeling gear to all the
schools, as well as educational materials for classroom use and the
development of field restoration projects to be studied in comparison
with natural and disturbed marine ecosystems. These environmental
education projects should be closely linked to the development of
long-term projects in coral reef restoration, fisheries restoration,
mariculture, and shore protection throughout Kuna Yala.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We give special
thanks to all of those who participated or helped make this program a
reality.
To the Kuna
children who were the first group to use the masks and snorkels:
Alfredo
Lopez
Jeramel Perez
Wikaliler Morgan
Pailibe Grimaldo
Remigio Morgan Jr.
Maninigdidili Grimaldo
Erik Ortega
Eliecer Davis
Isidro Ortega
Henry Benarias
Kevin Gonzalez
Clarina Arosomena
To the
instructors who assisted Marina Goreau, Roque Solis, and Tom Goreau:
Lucio Arosomena
Ultiminio Avila
Griselio Grimaldo
Kenji Wright
To the people of
Ukupseni who made this possible, especially to the the members of the
Comision Medio Ambiente de Ukupseni, Edgardo Hernandez, President of the
Asociacion de Madres y Padres de Familia de Playon Chico Escuela, Bennet
Preston, Headmaster of Ukupseni School, Remigio Morgan Sr,. Preident of
the Ukupseni Diver's Association, Paliwitur Sapibe and the entire staff
of Sapibenega, the Kuna Eco-Lodge, especially Don Tacho. We also thank
Gabriel Despaigne and Xiomara Moran of Asociacion Oceanica de Panama for
their help in Phase I of the project. Victor Miller kindly lent the
inflatable boat for a special treat for the children. We especially
thank the Sailas of Ukupseni and the Congresso General Kuna for their
constant support through the years.
We are also
especially grateful to those friends of reefs whose kind donations made
this project possible. Support from Roland Pesch and Kathleen Rosskopf
has made GCRA's reef restoration projects in Kuna Yala possible.
Donations from Richard Ruschman and from Jonathan, Danny, and Alex
Kopnick (who are the same ages as the Kuna children) were used to buy
the masks, fins, and snorkels for the program. A donation by Ben Spector
(5 years old) came too late for this phase of the project, but will be
used in the next phase.
All photographs
were taken by Marina Goreau or Tom Goreau.
The authors
(from left to right: Tom Goreau, Marina Goreau, Roque Solis, and
Marina's friend Jocelyn Avila.
PROPOSAL
We
propose to greatly expand the coral reef education and restoration
program in Kuna Yala through the following steps:
1.
Provide masks and snorkels for educational programs in the schools of
all 50 villages in Kuna Yala
2.
Prepare educational films for the program in Dule, Spanish, and English
for children in Kuna Yala, Panama and Latin America, and the rest of the
world respectively.
3.
Hold an educational and training workshop in the design, construction,
monitoring, and maintenance of Biorock coral and fisheries restoration
projects and Biorock shore protection reefs in Kuna Yala.
4. Expand the reef restoration
programs to all villages seeking them and use them as underwater
classrooms for the school children. |
