Global Conservation Featured in The Guardian and The World

The Guardian Features Global Conservation’s Work in the Darien Gap

“The Darién Gap’s isolation and formidable reputation has shielded the Indigenous communities who live there from the outside world for centuries. Spanish conquistadors died trying to settle in the sliver of dense, swampy rainforest connecting Colombia with Panama, and in recent decades only the most intrepid outsiders have undertaken the 60-mile (97km) trek as a test of their mettle.

Now, however, with half a million people slogging through the rainforest on their way to the US each year, Darién’s Indigenous groups say their ecosystem and way of life are under threat.

‘It’s something that we did not expect, as the migration took off from one day to the next and suddenly we found ourselves flooded with trash,’ says Yenairo Aji, a community leader, or ‘noco’, in Nueva Vigía, a village close to the Darién’s northern frontier where about 1,400 Emberá people live. ‘It’s worrying because we depend on our local ecosystem for everything. It’s our source of life.’”

GC Advisor Max Villalobos Podcast Interviews for The World News

Each year, 500,000 illegal immigrants passing through the Darien gap leave behind 10 million pounds of trash and human waste, which presents a significant challenge for the National Park. This makes the human waste total over 100 million pounds during the past decade. The waste often spreads to many other parts of Panama, polluting local ecosystems and affecting entire communities.