Kuna Yala or Dulenega

The indigenous Kuna or Dule people are the most widely known of the Panamanian indigenous groups, but especially in the sense that when a dule or kuna says that they are going to Kuna Yala, they say "An Duleneg(se) an nae" - "I'm going to Dulenega".

The word is made up of two parts:- Dule, which comes from the root 'Dula', meaning people, part, person, human, to be alive. In essence, this is how we kunas or dules consider ourselves. The other component part, nega, means house, village, habitat or homeland. So altogether the word means 'Homeland of the Dule'. Likewise, the term 'Kuna Yala' has the same connotation, but with a slight variation - Kuna is another of the Dule's words for themselves, but in this sense it means plain or surface, so the term is used to mean the origin of the first coat or layer of the Earth, of the wide plains and habitat of man (dule) which is the Earth's surface. Yana, however, literally means mountain, hill or valley. Its derivatives are Yal or Yar. But when Dule people talk about Yala it also means territory or home and fatherland - fatherland of the great plains (as in the beginnings of Dule history)

The Dule or Kuna people collectively own the Kuna Yala region which is in the north-east of Panama, comprising approximately 5,500 sq.km. It stretches from the south-east to the north-east, from the Colombian border and the edge of the Darién National Park to the Gulf of San Blas. The land part comprises about 350 hectares of a wide swathe of jungle. This makes up the long and narrow Atlantic slope and the southern edge of the region. The territorial waters of half of Panama extend a few miles off the coast, including more than 360 small coral islands of about 200,000 hectares in total. From one side to the other the distance by sea in a straight line is about 226km/40 miles.

Panama and the Kuna Yala Region

According to the 1990 National Census of Panama, the indigenous population is 191,561, representing approximately 8.2% of the Panamanian Republic's total population (2,329,329). There are five clearly defined indigenous groups:- Ngobe-Buglé, Kuna, Embera-Waunan, Bokotas and Teribes. With a population of 123,626, the Ngobe-Bublé are the largest group, accounting for 64.5% of the country's indigenous population. The 1990 Census found that the Kuna represent 24.7% (47,298 people), making them the second largest indigenous group in the country. The average age was 20 years old.

A Census carried out by the Ministry of Health in 1989 indicates that the population currently living in the Kuna Region totals 40,864 people. The great majority of these are spread over 38 islands, but eleven communities live along the same coast - in coastal parts of the region which lack islands - plus two communities which are located a few kilometres in on the mainland.

The Census figures for indigenous populations are approximate and less than the true figures. According to these calculations the indigenous Panamanian population could be as high as 10%, or in other words that as many as 1 in 10 Panamanians belong to an indigenous group.

Although Panama's GDP/capita is relatively high (US$ 2,850 in 1994), almost half the population is poor, and 23% are extremely poor. Panama has one of the highest disparities in income distribution in the whole of Latin America. According to the National Survey carried out in 1991, the bottom 28% of the population earned just 4% of national Income in 1979, ten years later this figure had fallen to 2%. Most of the poor and extremely poor live in rural areas, making up for 2/3 of homes. At least 40% of rural households are subject to extreme poverty, with 17% of urban households living in similar conditions. Poverty affects women especially. On a national level, about 70% of rural households have a woman as the head of the family. Considering that the 1991 survey only included houses with a known income, some of the poorest groups were excluded - such as subsistence level incomes and indigenous groups. These figures therefore tend to underestimate the true situation.

The areas of rural poverty tend to be close to, or form part of, rural ecosystems which are either highly degraded or only very slightly affected. One example of the former would be the high lands of the central provinces, and a case of the latter would be the humid and ecologically fragile zones of the Atlantic and the border. This relationship between poverty and the level of conservation is not an accidental one. Historically, the Government has invested comparatively small sums in improving the standard of living or the economic opportunities of the rural poor. In addition, the use of national resources has been largely along the lines of unlimited exploitation, with few of the economic benefits going to local inhabitants, although there are some notable exceptions (the Kuna Yala, for example). These factors, together with low rural investment, unsustainable levels of natural resource exploitation, and the lack of channelling of profits to local communities, have resulted in a low level of productivity and income in rural sectors. In turn, this has reinforced the cycle of degrading of resources, poverty and migration.

Sources: World Bank; for the Biological Corridor of the Panamanian Atlantic Project.