Mapping in Kuna Yala, Panama (2001-3)

In early 2001, Native Lands began working with the Kuna Indians of Panama on the production of a series of maps of their territory, the Comarca de Kuna Yala. The Comarca, to which the Kuna have held legal title since 1938, covers an area of more than 5,400 km2 divided almost equally between land and sea, running in a gentle arc along the northeast coast the country as far as the Colombian border. There are 51 Kuna villages with a total population of between 35,000 and 50,000. The mapping project was managed by the Kuna General Congress and was a collaborative effort with the government mapping agency, the Instituto Geográfico Nacional "Tommy Guardia." There were several objectives of the project: to document Kuna land use inside the Comarca boundaries as a way of defending against the incursion of non-Kuna colonists; to claim lands outside the Comarca that the Kuna had used for centuries; to strengthen political organization; and to record Kuna knowledge of their culture and history. The project produced two final sets of maps: a set of eight 1:50,000 maps of zones within the Comarca and a single 1:163,000 map showing the entire region. Click here to READ MORE