The effects of Climate Change on land use for Panamanian Indigenous Tribes

Kara Mariano

CayugaCommunity

college

January 8, 2010

Outline

• Indigenous tribe locations

• Land use specifics

• Temperature anomalies: 2020 & 2050

• Precipitation anomalies: 2020 & 2050

• Observations

• What can this lead to?

• Further study

• Acknowledgements

Comarcas

• Ngobe Bugle

• Kuna Yala

• Embera

Three Main Indigenous Tribes

Panama Indigenous Land

Land Use

Major Land Use Purposes

• Housing

• Location

• Materials

• Occupations

• Materials for handcrafts

• Tourism attractions

• Food Source

• Fishing

• Forest Crops

Temperature Anomaliesdry season

2050s

2020sJanuary

Degrees C

Temperature Anomalies wet season

July2020s

2050s

Temperature Observations

Ngobe Bugle

• 1 degree C increase for 2020

• 2.2 degree C increase for 2050

Wet SeasonDry Season

• 0.7 to 1 degree C increase for 2020

• 1.2 degree C increase for 2050

Kuna Yala

• 0.7 degrees C increase for 2020

• 1.8 degrees C increase for 2050

Dry Season

•0.7 to 0.9 degree C increase for 2020

•0.7 to 1.1 degree C increase in 2050

Wet Season

Embera

• 0.7 to 0.9 degree C increase for 2020

• 1.7 to 2.2 degree C increase for 2050

Dry Season Wet Season

• 0.7 to 1.2 degree C increase for 2020

• 1.2 to 1.3 degree C increase for 2050

Precipitation Anomaliesdry season

2020s

2050s

January

Precipitation Anomalieswet season

July 2020s

2050s

Precipitation Observations

Ngobe Bugle

• -4.3 to a -21.6 mm decrease in 2020

• -4.3 to a 77.7 mm decrease in 2050

• 0.9 to a -10.5 change in 2020

• 0.9 to a -10.5 change in 2050 (majority is a mm decrease)

Wet SeasonDry Season

Kuna Yala

• -1.3 to -10.5 mm decrease in 2020

• -4.4 to -41.6 mm decrease in 2050

Wet SeasonDry Season

• 0.9 to -10.5 mm change in 2020

• 0.9 to -10.5 mm change in 2050 (majority -4.4 to -10.5 mm)

Embera

• -1 to -10.5 mm decrease in 2020

• -4.4 to -21.6 mm decrease in 2050

Wet SeasonDry Season

• 5.4 to 0.8 mm change in 2020

• 0.8 to 1.9 mm change in 2050

Observations

• It appears that the temperature anomalies for the wet and dry season continue to show an

increase in 2020 and 2050

• It appears that precipitation anomalies for the wet and dry seasons show a decrease in 2020 and 2050

In Theory

• The increase in temperature and decrease in precipitation in 2020 and 2050 can cause drought, severe heat exhaustion, deforestation, desertification, inability to survive within the land

Negative effects

• Decrease in:

• Availability of resources

• Housing supplies

• Craft supplies

• Decrease in usable land

• Agriculture

• Housing

• Limiting growth

• Decrease Profits

• Limited handcraft supplies

• Decrease in time

• Decrease Tourist attractions

Complete Change in Natural Lifestyle

Societal Catastrophic Example

Decrease in

Lower Sea Levels would Cause a

Which is the tribes main food

source

This would cause a need to purchase fish or meat to store at the sights. The Para Puru community within Embera powers refrigerators through solar panels. Once, the battery life depletes, they will have to find other ways to power the

refrigerator. Without the money to purchase energy, from tourism or crafts, they would have to change their complete

livelihoods

What can this lead to?

• Eventually, I theorize that the indigenous tribes will be forced to migrate away from there homeland

• The climate changes could potentially cause severe chaos and lead to a disastrous destruction of the ancestral indigenous tribes

Recommendations for Further Study

• Create anomaly maps for: land use, deforestation, drought

• Expand location

• Expand anomaly years

• Add the two recent indigenous tribes of Panama

Acknowledgements• IAGT

• USAID

• Eric Anderson

• Africa Flores

• John Flores

• Emil Cherrington

• Francisco Delagado

• Joel Perez

• Eloisa Dutari

• Lilian Suarez

• Betsy Hernandez

• Roxana Segundo

• Valerie Garrish

• Mr. G

Special Thanks to Amy Work, Nate Krause, Mariana Escamilla, and CATHALAC