while food waste takes over american landfills, traditional composting is unable to keep up with both the quantity and range of foods being thrown out. but deep in the panamanian jungle, one community is using black soldier flies to eliminate food waste of all kinds. watch now to see how meat, dairy, and even bones are rapidly decomposed by these specialized larvae.

jimmy stice, a real estate entrepreneur who works in t-shirts and shorts, hopes to build small, sustainable houses in kalu yala, the jungle retreat and eco-town he founded in the panamanian rainforest. he already has spent years there developing an institute where college students come to explore and create strategies for alternative energy and farm-to-table food supplies, and experience outdoor living in tents.

raised in missouri, stice is passionate about creating a diverse community that facilitates the spread of innovative ideas.

“the original vision of kalu yala was as much as it is now, really. when we talk about the word sustainability we really meant social sustainability,” says stice, 36. the concept “is really important to me because that’s what my dad taught me.”

the builders of kalu yala, an eco-town in the making located in the heart of the panamanian rainforest, hope to complete the first permanent home this june. a hostel, designed to encourage adventure tourism, also recently opened in the town, in a wave of new initiatives that include expanded research on biofuels, using flies to compost, and other strategies related to environmental sustainability.

“i wanted to try (fly composting) because i knew this would be like an ideal environment for that kind of composting and basically i started a system of successful colonies of larvae,” says jules hart, a biology student during the spring semester at kalu yala. “we can give them all of our food scraps and they can break down almost anything.”

like most kalu yala interns, hart returned home at the end of her 10-week internship and plans to carry on her research at the university of nevada, where she attends college.

when they return home to the u.s. or other parts of the world, alums of kalu yala hope to adapt and apply their new knowledge to their local communities. in their place a new group of interns will continue work on existing projects or start new sustainability initiatives in construction, agriculture, energy, and recreation.

the visibility of large-scale climate change has made sustainability a profitable venture. kalu yala’s business model is capitalizing on the increasingly popular opportunities for environmentalism and ecotourism.

stice, whose father is a real estate developer, grew up in the world of creating, selling, and buying buildings. it’s an arena that is notorious for its negative environmental impacts. combining the two ideas of real estate and sustainability was a key impetus for stice in launching kalu yala.

the young american entrepreneur purchased the land and opened kalu yala in its jungle home in 2011. the town is built in a remote area in the panamanian jungle, accessed only by a treacherous 3-mile hike or car ride. originally cleared as pasture for raising cattle, the area is now home to an academic institute, a coffee shop, and a pub. cattle are still raised on pasture there to provide natural fertilizer, part of the community’s sustainability effort.

kalu yala is a kuna term meaning sacred land and a link that honors the indigenous guna people who maintain traditional ways of life on caribbean islands off the panama mainland where they operate a lucrative tourist business. in contrast, kalu yala is made by design and aspiring to be socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable eco-town, serving as a possible prototype for future town building.

“the idea is to become the world’s most sustainable town,” says tara mclaughlin, president of kalu yala institute, the study abroad program that operates out of kalu yala.

while institute staff and interns are living sustainably compared to the average american, they are doing so near communities that have been in balance with nature for centuries. but it is difficult to envision how such a sustainable city can be scaled up and applied to pre-existing urban areas with skyscrapers, industries, and cars choking the expressways and the atmosphere with carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.

currently, nearly everyone at kalu yala lives and sleeps in tents or hammocks on top of elevated wooden platforms in roofed, open air ranchos. their lifestyles reflect the environmental mission of kalu yala; they use biodegradable products for personal hygiene, their clothes are air dried, and they eat mostly plant-based, farm-to-table local food.

the town boasts that a resident at kalu yala contributes a mere 8% of the carbon footprint of a typical american. while most students interning at kalu yala take international flights to panama, the students later plant trees to offset the carbon emissions of their trips. the current sustainability model that measures environmental impact is focused on carbon emissions but later will expand to include other elements of sustainability such as biodiversity.

as kalu yala begins to scale up with the ultimate goal of creating a town, the models for environmental sustainability and social inclusion will increasingly be put to the test. and their model of sustainability will have to adapt to the construction of permanent homes, the first major step towards town building.

construction, an industry that historically has been damaging to the environment, appears at odds with the town’s light carbon footprint. however, the houses themselves and the broader design of the city here are deliberately planned to align with kalu yala’s mission.

kalu yala’s current goal is the creation of two towns, which will be located within the same land purchased by stice. the less-populated town is situated closer to kalu yala and will house a population of roughly 500 full-time residents according to wes stiner, director of design and construction at kalu yala. the homes of the smaller town will be located on a piece of land that is roughly a half-mile long.

“with the way we are going to line the streets with trees, we’re actually going to be planting more trees than we’re probably going to be cutting,” stiner says. “for every acre we’re building on, there are four surrounding kalu yala that are going to be put into conservation.”

the houses themselves are designed to be environmentally friendly as well. each lot will house two homes, a larger, “charleston” style home and a smaller, “carriage” home. the larger homes will be 1,000-1,500 square feet and the tiny homes will be roughly 500 square feet, with airy floor plans that expand space with a sense of the natural landscape just outside. homes will allow a variety of price ranges.

the houses will be made of a combination of brick and amargo amargo, a petrified wood harvested from the bottom of the panama canal. to prevent construction waste, the needed material inputs have been precisely measured.

the creation of a town also will put increasing pressure on the socially inclusive model that kalu yala has molded as an integral component of their mission. the target intern demographic has been relatively affluent americans who stand in stark contrast to kalu yala’s neighbors in the panamanian community of san miguel. many people farm here but even getting a high school education is a challenge, and one that means long bus rides to schools outside the town. kalu yala isn’t designed to fill that kind of gap, but does hope to offer more english classes in san miguel, a spur for city jobs.

the mission of social inclusion has become “increasingly nuanced,” according to stice.

kalu yala has implemented a few programs to encourage integration with san miguel. they hope to expand collaboration with san miguel more in the future. currently, kalu yala has an afterschool program for kids in san miguel that teaches english and ideas of environmental sustainability, according to mclaughlin.

students interning at the kalu yala institute spend the first portion of orientation week learning about panama and they take spanish classes during their 10 weeks.

prioritizing panamanians and social integration has been too expensive in the past. “it’s more affordable to hire outside (panama),” says mclaughlin, explaining the lack of panamanian instructors at kalu yala institute.

however, kalu yala is making an effort to integrate more of the panamanian community. kalu yala will be offering 15 full scholarships to students from san miguel in january 2019, according to stice.

most interns come now from america, europe, or australia.

“having students found a town that’s based on existing for a mission is basically a way to create a really fast feedback loop that calls you out on your bullshit,” stice says.

while kalu yala stresses social inclusion, it’s hard to shake the neo-colonial overtones that implicate nearly all foreign endeavors coming into less affluent areas. the community of kalu yala remains overwhelmingly white and primarily english speakers, despite its location in the panamanian jungle.

“then socially — and this is the part where kalu yala is still struggling the most — (the question) is who’s being included with the diversity? and then the second part of that will be: are we creating socio-economic mobility in that diversity?” stice says. “we’re a start-up, and we haven’t done them yet, but they’re still a declared part of our mission and we won’t be successful until we fulfill them.”

the biology department of the kalu yala institute looks a little different from a traditional research lab. bare feet and gym shorts suffice instead of lab coats and goggles. rather than scalpels or x-acto knives, students pick up machetes to make their way through the brush and pluck up specimen samples. and, in place of a classic laboratory space filled with spotless counters and sanitized equipment, the “classroom” consists of open-air wooden ranchos in the heart of panama’s rainforest.

out here among the towering fronds and scurrying iguanas, selah phillips is taking advantage of one of the natural resources that abounds in the humid environment: algae. the 20-year-old plant enthusiast, on a semester abroad at kalu yala from millersville university in pennsylvania, has made it her mission to take the green filaments and turn it into green energy. by extracting oil from the organisms, which grow freely on the rocks in the nearby pacora and iguana rivers, she believes she can produce a source of biodiesel to serve as an alternative to polluting fossil fuels.

“on a global scale, research on biodiesel enables us to deindustrialize, decentralize, and bring more income back to the community,” she says during a presentation for other kalu yala students. “just save our environment in the long term.”

those at kalu yala have taken it upon themselves to create a fully sustainable eco-city that can serve as a model for a more environmentally friendly future. the city in the making also hosts an “institute,” which enrolls students — many of them on a semester abroad from colleges and universities — to work on projects from tiny house architecture to agroforestry. they’re hoping to find solutions to the biggest environmental issues of our time, all in the span of 10 weeks.

phillips and her fellow “kalu yalans,” as they are fond of calling themselves, may miss out on some of the resources and credibility they’d find at a more standard university. but the unique nature of the program gives them unprecedented independence and access to the riches of the surrounding environment, a wellspring of biodiversity that often goes ignored by international researchers and underutilized by a national government that is decreasing its spending on research and development.

this past spring semester, kalu yala’s biology department consisted of three people: two students and program director ryan king, who serves as lecturer, lab adviser, mentor, and everything in between. all of them had come from u.s. universities. and, during their time in the jungle, all had created projects uniquely suited to the setting, which could have real implications for the future of sustainability.

if, that is, they can successfully bring their ideas with them in their return to the “real world.”

fueling the future

for phillips, the social media-savvy kalu yala had been on her online radar long before she ever decided to make the journey there herself. an earlier project to create sustainable ponds for growing tilapia had put the eco-city on her map as a place where innovative environmental work was happening. after following kalu yala’s work for three or four years, phillips said she decided to head to the jungle to see it for herself.

the journey, she said, represented an opportunity to challenge herself and be out in the field without the regular guidelines of the university curriculum.

and the project she picked out put her adaptability to the test. though the algae was free for the taking, the makeshift jungle “laboratory” lacked a lot of the supplies and equipment she took for granted at her university. so, with king’s help, phillips found ways to make do with what she could find.

to get the coveted vegetable oil out of the algae for biodiesel, king said he and phillips needed a chemical solvent to break the oil from the cells it was locked inside. the two decided to start with methyl alcohol, already available as a waste product from the onsite rum distillery, and combine it with homemade chloroform.

“that was really awesome and really exciting because as far as research that we know of, it’s the first time using house-made solvents — like solvents that we actually made in house, on our own — to produce biodiesel,” phillips said

eventually, king said he wants to work on growing “massive amounts” of algae and phase out some of the diesel power being used at kalu yala, like in the backup generator and possibly vehicles as well.

on her end, phillips plans to try to get the research published and see if she can continue the project at her university. king says there’s still research to be done in figuring out the most efficient way to produce oil, streamlining factors like the algae species and extraction methods. phillips said she’s also considered returning to kalu yala as a teaching assistant.

no matter where her plans take her, though, phillips said she is dedicated to the pursuit of a greener tomorrow. to create a sustainable future, she said new technology has to be based in an understanding of biological science.

“that’s all chemistry. that’s all biology that’s being understood to create those things,” phillips said. “so i think it’s at the base of reversing climate change and implementing sustainability, because sure, sustainability might seem more like a practical idea, more applicable. but i think it takes knowledge of science and the earth and the ecosystem to apply.”

sustainable soldiers

while phillips was looking to the river for resources, her fellow biology intern jules hart had her eye to the sky.

hart, a 20-year-old biology student from the university of nevada, is the animal lover of the bunch. her project took on sustainability from the other end: while phillips’ natural biodiesel aimed to prevent waste, hart’s focused on breaking it down more efficiently. and the tools she used to accomplish that? a colony of living, breathing — and, most of all, eating — black soldier fly larvae.

“basically in the developmental stage, like when they’re larvae, their sole purpose is to eat decaying matter,” hart said of the species. “so they’re perfect for eating rotting food.”

the larvae act as decomposing machines, effectively devouring even the tough scraps that won’t compost easily. after weeks of trying in vain to attract enough flies for a functioning system, hart said she finally was able to establish a colony near the end of her semester, and since has collected thousands of larvae in a wooden structure into which she periodically dumps buckets of kitchen scraps.

though she realizes the teeming mass and putrid garbage smell might put others off, hart says the flies — which she often refers to as her “babies” — are a beautiful discovery for sustainable waste disposal. adult flies don’t carry disease vectors, she said, and since they only live long enough to reproduce (about a week), they won’t mess with the ecosystem or become a nuisance to the community. also, once the larvae reach the pupation stage, they become a “little bite of protein” that can be fed to kalu yala’s chicken or tilapia.

hart said the project and her entire stay at kalu yala were transformative for her. she came into the experience a little bit unfocused — she hadn’t been fully applying herself to her studies at school, she said, and living thousands of miles from her family and boyfriend took a toll on her emotional state.

but the time in the jungle, in addition to giving her insight into sustainable systems, also taught hart a lot about herself – like the fact that she wants to be a teacher (she called her school from kalu yala to add a major in education). and while she’s not sure of how to implement the moisture-loving larvae back in her hot and arid hometown of reno, nevada, hart said at the very least she’ll be taking home a renewed passion for her studies.

“being here and being in the nature and just really being in the middle of the biodiversity and just in the jungle, it’s totally rekindled my love for biology,” hart said. “out here traveling alone, getting here alone, being that emotionally vulnerable … it just helped me get to know myself and my limits and my strengths and weaknesses.”

keeping the momentum

despite the wealth of biological resources in the rich rainforest ecosystem, king said he and his students are part of only a small group of researchers working in the panamanian jungle and similar tropical regions.

“biodiversity tends to go up near the equator,” king said. “there’s a lot of issues all over the world and in other parts in the tropics. … not many people pay scientists or researchers to go out and document species.”

for an institute focused on sustainability, though, kalu yala hasn’t always succeeded at sustaining its own progress. as students come and go every 10 weeks, projects can get left behind; hopeful innovations fall into disrepair as new cohorts of students bustle in with their own ideas.

hart said her black soldier fly colony was actually in part a reincarnation of a project that had been attempted in prior years. the structure she uses to house her larvae had been built by a former kalu yalan with a similar plan, but the concept had been abandoned once its originator moved on from the jungle. she’s created a detailed manual for maintaining the black soldier fly colony, which she said will involve only minimal effort. still, the fate of her passion project lies in the hands of future interns, who will likely be preoccupied with their own big goals.

and when students leave, projects that at the time seem to have promising futures tend to stop maturing at 10 weeks. king said none of his former students have gotten published with the work they began at kalu yala, though he hopes that will change with phillips’ algae research.

tara mclaughlin, the president of the kalu yala institute, said continuity has been an issue in the past. she and other leaders are working to provide more support for interns so they can grow their projects beyond their brief semesters in the jungle.

“we’re going to start pushing into publication, trying to get accreditation (in partnership with a university),” mclaughlin said. “i would like to start opening up a more research station facility type thing, so getting independent researchers from universities down to be doing research and publishing and getting our name out there as a real academic powerhouse.”

even for those far from the lush canopy of the rainforest, hart said there is still work to be done. while the natural world might be more obvious at a place like kalu yala, she said biodiversity can and should be noticed anywhere in the world. if we as a species truly want to move toward a more sustainable lifestyle, hart believes it’s essential that we pay more attention to the richness of life that is everywhere we go.

“biodiversity is all around us. i mean, it is nature. it’s every plant, every animal, everything that you’re hearing and smelling and seeing is life and biology,” hart said. “so, of course it has to be considered when we’re trying to think about living in this type of environment and … living with the earth rather than living off it.”

about the author: medill student maddie burakoff can be reached at mburakoff@u.northwestern.edu and on twitter @madsburk.

“here you are looking at a line of papaya, a line of bananas, a line of plantains, and oh! look! a line of baby pineapple,” exclaims zoe st. john, agriculture director of the eco-town kalu yala, as she walks through a small scale agroforestry in the panamanian jungle. rows of alternating crops are integrated with the natural environment, an image of the symbiosis that can exist between humans and the environment.

chickens cluck and strut at edges of the enclosure, which barely seems like an enclosure at all with the plethora of green plants covering almost every square inch. st. john walks closer to the infant pineapple plant and admires its growth with an almost maternal smile. “i am so proud of it! isn’t it fantastic!”

st. john is a tall, bright eyed 25-year-old farmer originally from new orleans. now she lives in the tropical jungles of panama in the developing eco-community of kalu yala. she arrived as an agriculture intern a little more than a year ago and quickly became the director of agriculture when the former director left.

​​kalu yala, a community start-up and educational institute located 50 minutes outside of san miguel at the end of a hot 3-mile hike, is being built from the bottom up with the goal of becoming one of the world’s most sustainable towns.

“our mission is to build a new town that proves civilization can live in a socially and environmentally responsible way,” says jimmy stice, the 36-year-old founder and ceo of kalu yala.

interns travel to the jungle town from the u.s. and across the world to explore and create conservation, energy, and construction models they can apply to the urban communities where many resident interns will return. many of these projects will also be implemented long-term at kalu yala. the work areas and communal center of town stretch across more than 500 acres of former cow pasture sold to the community by neighboring farmers.

while st. john is the agriculture director of the program, she wears a lot of hats, including farm manager, farm director, and greenhouse manager. yet, despite her titles, she spends most of her time outside digging in the dirt alongside her agriculture students, harvesting an array of crops such as breadfruit, garlic vine, and passionfruit.

the extensive agriculture program at kalu yala includes rotational chicken and cow pastures, a newly up-and-running greenhouse, a 50-acre agroforestry farm, and ponds of tilapia. however, in this moment st. john is walking us through a small permaculture forest pointing out various plants in various stages of life. permaculture is a farming method that follows a set of 12 principles relying on observation and interaction with nature. it is based on the natural flow that is presented to the farmer who then works with nature to make sure the farm maintains harmony with its environment. however, st. john feels that permaculture creates more of a forage style farm suited for smaller families, not for large-scale implementation.

“if you are a farmer that has worked with tropical trees you can just walk through and point them out,” explains st. john as she expertly navigates the forest, frequently stopping mid-sentence to identify yucca, lime trees, and an array of other crops. “however, if you are not a farmer this permaculture farm is not efficient. how the heck would you be able to know what to eat?!”

in order to feed a town as large as kalu yala, the agriculture program has to turn to agroforestry. an agroforestry still employs the principles of permaculture, but in a more organized fashion so that crops are more easily identifiable. to do this rows of alternating crops are planted.

“it’s incredibly nuanced as it takes into account the culture, the climate, the soil, and well everything,” st. john says. she also points out that the 50-acre agroforestry will have large hardwood trees, such as jackfruit or breadfruit trees, that will sequester carbon from the atmosphere — a win/win for both the planet and the community that relies on the trees for food.

the reason closed-loop farm systems like an agroforestry or permaculture forest are so important is because conventional farming methods strip the soil of its nutrients, leaving it degraded or in need of artificial fertilizers. this degradation can turn fertile land in deserts, which is now occurring across the world.

“if we want to make sure that everyone can feed themselves we have to have regionalized, very nuanced, and specific solutions,” st. john says, “agroforestry systems and carbon farming is one of the best solutions we have agriculturally speaking.”

when the farm at kalu yala was first established at the end of 2012, the town hired a permaculturist who assessed the land and climate in order to decide which crops would do best. the permaculturist brought hundreds of different species adapted to grow in the jungle that are considered non-invasive. about 50 percent of the crops on the farm are non-native, but from regions with a similar climate such as thailand, according to st. john.

she has accumulated knowledge through books and trial and error. st. john says she has killed more plants than she’s grown during her time as a farmer). she passes along the expertise she’s gaining to her agriculture students. this semester she had two: trevor hanks and luke stone.

“i do not know if i want to be a farmer, but i know that if i decide to, i have a lot of things i would need to know crossed off,” says stone, a 20-year-old college student from connecticut, whose final project for his internship explored all-natural pesticides made from garlic, hot peppers, and neem oil. “you don’t even know how much you are learning from zoe until one day you’re like, ‘woah, what is all of this in my brain.’”

meanwhile, 22-year-old hanks spent his semester digging trenches that irrigated water to the farmland. hanks, who studies sustainability at san diego state university, plans to own a farm one day.

“there are a lot of facets that go into owning and operating a farm,” hanks says. “kalu yala and zoe gave me the tools so i know exactly how to go about that business.”

on a typical work day, st. john and her two students awake up at 7 a.m., well before the rest of the town, and get to work on the farm. this way they can avoid doing hard labor in the hot tropical sun of midday. this semester they finished putting the roof onto the greenhouse as well as spent months composting the soil that eventually will be used to grow seedlings.

“my favorite thing i think about agriculture is that death begets life,” explains st. john as she munches on protein-packed katuk and minty, red cranberry hibiscus leaves she has just plucked from nearby plants, both of which are used in salads for meals at kalu yala. “that is composting in a nutshell. it’s really just us controlling the process of death.” 

st. john discovered her passion for agriculture during her post-college travels. a graduate of rhodes college with a history degree in north african colonialism, st. john decided to explore south and central america through the world wide opportunities on organic farms, otherwise known as wwoofing.

“i told myself i could go back to the city after, but my friends noticed i was miserable,” st. john says. “they told me to go back to the farm wherever the heck it may be.” she’s been at kalu yala for little over a year now.

now, watching her pass around bamboo wax fruit to students, cheeks stuffed with her own big bite, it is clear that st. john is anything but miserable. it’s almost impossible to imagine her anywhere but the rainforest with her muck boots and machete as she points out a lime tree which she proclaims as “sassy.” yet, she does acknowledge that living in panama has its struggles, especially for someone who spent four years studying the ramifications of colonialism.

“i stay awake thinking about how i am an american in panama literally every night,” says st. john as we now sit by the peaceful tilapia ponds, the soft sound of water trickling in the background. “there’s a difference, though, between neocolonialism and globalization. a lot of it is about intention. we are not telling neighboring farmers to adopt our values and practices. we really are just here.”

abelardo “tito” nuñez davies first came to pelican island 15 years ago. it was much larger then.

the small hut he and his mother share started out in the middle of this tiny oasis of sand. now, the structure sits at the edge of the waves on the island’s eastern shore, amid a cluster of palm trees. the ocean laps at their doorstep. but the building never moved; the island shrank.

over the past decade or so, storms have slowly been washing the sand away. davies has seen parts of the island flood and the beach begin to disappear. the storms, he said, are getting stronger and stronger. 

last year’s particularly fierce hurricane season didn’t directly impact the area, but pelican island still endured the effects. “the storm was soft,” davies said. “but it was still very scary. the whole house was flooded and it destroyed the wall.”

“what can i say? we’re here because of the grace of god,” davies said. despite the increasing threat of storms, he said he and his mother have no plans to relocate. they make money for their family by welcoming tourists, who visit the picturesque stretch of sand for a few hours at a time to sunbathe and drink out of coconuts. pelican island receives boats of them daily.

to combat the flooding, davies and his mother are attempting to build a sea wall off the island’s western shore, which may destroy the encircling coral reef in the process. but they don’t want to risk losing their island, which provides them with significant income.

does he think the storms will get less intense as time goes on? davies replied with a spanish tenet: “ojala” — god willing.

rising tides

pelican island is just one of more than 350 islands in the san blas archipelago, part of the caribbean province of guna yala (pronounced “koona yahlah”) along the northern coast of panama. widely regarded as some of the most beautiful and pristine in the world, some 50 of these islands are home to the guna people, an indigenous group that has won the rights to self-govern this area and a strip of the mainland coast.

the guna arrived to panama and these islands in canoes from the northern coast of colombia after the arrival of the spanish in the 1500s, fleeing colonization. since then, they have developed a relationship with the islands as well as their territory on land.

“i grew up in an environment of socialism,” said diwigdi valiente, a guna environmental advocate who grew up on these islands. “within my community, everything was shared. there were people that used to go fishing, there were people that used to go hunting, there were people that used to go farming, and then at the end of the day they would all come back and share everything they had with the people on the island.”

valiente has been visiting pelican island for years, and he said it’s shrunk to half its original size over his lifetime.

the san blas are on the front lines of climate change. scientists at the smithsonian tropical research institute in panama estimate that sea levels are rising three quarters of an inch every year, accelerating from the conservative 3 millimeter estimate first released by the u.n.’s intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc). at this rate, most of the islands could be underwater in less than 30 years. it’s a similar story in island countries and coastal cities around the world, from kiribati to dhaka.

“if there is a storm here, there could be islands that will completely vanish,” valiente said. “there are months when the islands get completely flooded. you have water up to your ankles. imagine living for a month like that.”

heating up

pelican island’s peril begins thousands of miles away, in the industrialized areas of the world. here, greenhouse gases — emitted mainly from fossil fuels — spread like a blanket across the globe and trap heat. scientists tout the “greenhouse effect” as the cause for global warming: it caused the warming of the earth following the last ice age, which supported life on the planet as we know it, but massive fossil fuel emissions since the industrial revolution have accelerated greenhouse gas levels to a dangerous peak. 

when light energy from the sun travels to the earth, it passes through greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (namely carbon dioxide and methane), originally derived from natural processes like decomposition and respiration in organisms. some of this light energy is reflected back into space, while some is contained by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. this trapped light energy contains heat that creates a warming effect that raises the temperature of the planet. without this layer of gases, earth would be far too cold for life to sustain itself.

but once humans began burning fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas made from previously decomposed organic material — during the industrial revolution, the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere dramatically increased. these emissions collected in the atmosphere, raising levels of carbon dioxide. the atmosphere, in turn, trapped more light energy and radiated more heat back onto the earth’s surface. this has caused the average global temperature to increase at a rapid pace — something never before encountered during the existence of humans on this planet.

as the planet warms, ice sheets in places like greenland and antarctica and sea ice in the polar regions, begin to melt. massive chunks of glaciers break off into the sea at alarming rates, melting and causing sea levels to rise.

additionally, atmospheric heat and absorbed carbon dioxide cause thermal expansion in the oceans. water particles become energized and take up more space, again accelerating sea level rise. 

moreover, a warming ocean sustains more intense storm systems such as hurricanes (as we’ve recently seen with increasingly brutal hurricane seasons). tiny islands like the san blas are ravaged by these storms, which uproot trees with strong winds and flood beaches with storm surge.

climate refugees

some guna people don’t appreciate the severity of the situation, said valiente, particularly older generations, like davies and his mother, who don’t have access to information about climate change and rising sea levels.

“you try to explain (to) people climate change, and they don’t understand it because they are not causing it,” valiente said. “the worst thing about climate change is that people in need — people that are not making the problem — are the ones that are going to suffer the most. everywhere. not only in panama, not only with the gunas — everywhere.”

but valiente is doing work to combat that lack of knowledge with a project called burwigan, leading art projects for guna children about environmental issues that affect them directly.

“we would make fish sculptures. we are putting the fish at different levels around the houses to show them where the sea level will be in the next couple of years,” he said. “i’m working with the kids because what they see now, it’s normal to them. to me, it’s not normal at all.”

valiente said that while moving is inevitable, plans for a mass relocation to the guna mainland territory several years ago never materialized due to a change in government. 

“we have (one of) the first documented cases of an indigenous group forced to move because of climate change,” valiente said, in “a country that did not contribute to climate change at all.”

in the pristine beauty of an archipelago off the caribbean coast of panama, the indigenous guna people show tourists to their small cabanas, where they will be surrounded by the sound of the crashing ocean as they sleep. the hosts prepare meals of freshly caught fish to feed their guests, while others crack open coconuts for tourists to sip while relaxing in blue waters.

guna women sell molas, part of their traditional clothing, and wrap long beaded bracelets around their visitors’ wrists. the guna people rely on tourism to the san blas islands to bring in revenue of $2 million – 80% of their total income.

in the next 20 years,  however, many of the islands of this idyllic destination will disappear under the waves.

climate change is causing rising sea levels across the globe, which means that the ocean is slowly creeping up the shorelines of these small islands. eventually, they will be uninhabitable, and the guna people can already see evidence that their homes are shrinking.

“look at this island: we are not even 30 centimeters above the sea level,” said diwigdi valiente, 28, a guna native who is an environmental activist and an advocate of ecotourism. “the urgency? it’s much more than what you expect.”

abelardo (tito) nuñez davies first arrived at his home on pelican island in the san blas chain 15 years ago, and he has already watched it transform in this short time span. “this island was much bigger before, and now some of the beach is disappearing,” he said.

although he can’t ignore the sight of his changing landscape, he hasn’t considered moving away yet and hopes he won’t be forced to. but the guna government is working to prepare for the day when people who have lived here for generations will no longer be able to call these islands home. these plans are difficult to develop – scheduling a mass exodus of climate change refugees is an unprecedented move.

“four years ago there was (a) budget to move the island to (the) mainland,” valiente said. “the government changed, and the budget was gone.” despite structural changes, the guna people continue to search for ways to plan for their inevitable move. “they’re applying to have funds (from the) u.n. to develop an adaptation and mitigation plan for climate change for panama,” he said.

aresio valiente lópez, a law professor at the university of panama and member of the guna congress, wants to create a special environmental department in the congress. “they will be in charge of making sure that the movement from the islands to mainland is going to be organized,” said lópez, valiente’s father. (note: valiente acted as a translator for lópez, who was speaking in spanish.) 

this move is more than physical for the guna people – it requires a transformation of their industries and economy. to lópez, this transformation is imperative so that the guna can continue to have a sustainable source of income. “our economy has to change,” he said.

“what they are trying to do now is to diversify what the source of income is,” valiente said. “right now, the biggest source of income is tourism.”

the guna people don’t have to abandon tourism completely if they can find ways to make it sustainable, which valiente is pioneering as a founder of bodhi hostels.

“right now, i am committed to building the most sustainable hostel chain in the world,” he said.

he plans to extend his business to the ocean around the san blas islands and build a hostel designed to survive the rising sea levels. his experience as a business owner has shown him that profits and environmental sustainability are not mutually exclusive – within a year of opening, his business broke even and was chosen as the best hostel in panama. now, he continues to run his business with both profits and sustainability in mind.

“right now, my job is to open new hostels, but at the same time, our hostels have a very strong and important focus on solving environmental issues, especially climate change,” valiente said. “sustainability is actually a way to make money and also have an impact in society and the environment at the same time. if you don’t make money and survive out of it, you are not sustainable.”

these two goals made bodhi a perfect fit for the developing town of kalu yala, where valiente and his business partner allan lim recently opened a new hostel. similar to the original bodhi hostel, kalu yala is a new business endeavor that values both profits and sustainability.

“our mission is to build a new town that proves that civilization can live in a socially and environmentally responsible way,” said kalu yala founder jimmy stice, an american entrepreneur.

kalu yala sits in tres brazos valley a few miles from san miguel, a small farming town in the panamanian jungle. founded in 2011, the town now boasts a coffee shop, a restaurant, a bar, and a store with snacks and sweets centered around a communal town square. these small businesses offer a bit of luxury to the sustainable lifestyle at kalu yala, which involves sleeping in open-air ranchos and exploring new sustainable farming practices. the crown jewel of the town is the kalu yala institute, where college students can spend a semester in the jungle studying topics such as engineering, outdoor recreation and media arts.

the institute is currently the main source of revenue for the town, but stice aims to build a fully functioning town, complete with a thriving industry of tourism and hospitality. the hostel is the first step for tourism as interns continue to at the institute continue to innovate sustainable energy, culinary, agriculture and water resource solutions for the community. now, stice plans to build accommodations that are more comfortable for people who aren’t used to camping in the jungle.

“we’ll start introducing the small houses, which will allow for people who want to sleep on a real mattress,” he said. people could purchase houses or just vacation in them – “$150 nights is inclusive just like $13 a night is inclusive” for the hostel, he said.

tara mclaughlin, president of the kalu yala institute for the interns who are helping to develop kalu yala, believes that ecotourism and social entrepreneurship are lucrative industries to be a part of right now.

“that current desire to be sustainable, or trying to make a difference, but also having that desire to travel – if you offer a product that allows somebody to do both of those things, then it’s a very desirable product,” she said.

with an experimental project like kalu yala, it’s possible that it could become a tourist trap rather than an authentic town. stice likened this potential outcome to a “disneyland of sustainability,” but that’s the worst case scenario, he said. he wants to balance tourism with other businesses and industries in the town, as well as the educational component.

marie stringer is capitalizing on this ecotourism potential by starting a zip line business at kalu yala. she believes that panama is an ideal market opportunity because it currently doesn’t have many zip lines, and the scenic jungle and rain forest surrounding kalu yala are stunning.

“there’s a reason why we’re building a million-dollar zip line and it’s paying for itself in two years,” she said.

she plans to hire local people from the nearby town of san miguel and former kalu yala interns to be the zip line guides. one of her top priorities is creating well-paid jobs in the small community and providing her employees with new skills – they will have access to free language classes so that all guides can be fluent in both english and spanish. she wants to emphasize this social change aspect throughout her business.

however, any social change arising from tourism also brings cultural exchange, which can have unintended outcomes.

“tourism is about moving people from one place to another,” valiente said. “when you move people from one place to another, you’re not only moving people: you’re moving experiences, you’re moving culture.”

“we had a group out here partying for panamanian carnival,” mclaughlin said. “dealing with that cultural collision, i think was both good for the students and both good for the panamanians that came out here. they learned a lot about what we’re doing.”

so far this cultural exchange has been positive, but as tourism continues to grow, san miguel residents may look to tourism as an alternative to the tradition of farming in the area. valiente has seen the negative effects of tourism in his home on the islands, and this is why he believes it is important for tourists to consider sustainability when they travel, learning about the cultural values of places they visit and minimizing the physical footprint they leave.

“it is important because when we move from one place to another, we affect the place and we make an impact on the place we are going to,” he said. “and we have the choice of making that a good or a bad impact.”

valiente believes that this impact would be more positive if tourists built relationships with the people whose homes they’re visiting and made an effort to interact with them.

“how do they see you?” he asked. “what do they see that you are coming to do here? do they see that you are coming just to relax and chill out at the beach? or do they see that you are coming here to interact with them and be interested in our culture, which is – besides the water and the nice beaches – one of the most important assets we have.”

despite the fact that the guna culture is one of their most valuable assets, valiente has watched it struggle to survive western influence.

“unfortunately, in the occidental world we have a very colonial society that forces people to believe that materialism is the best way to live: that buying stuff is what is going to make you feel happy,” he said. “but for the guna people, we don’t have to be rich in this life, because according to us, when we die we are going to go to a place where everything is gold. so for us, material stuff is not important. but when you start getting people that come here and have cell phones and have tvs and talk about all this stuff that happens in the western society, then you also start wondering, ‘ok, am i living good here (on) an island in the middle of nowhere? or should i also get a cell phone? should i also get a tv? should i also get cable tv?’”

for this reason, valiente can see a positive side to leaving the islands. “i think it’s a great opportunity for everyone to embrace a culture that’s about to get lost,” he said. he wants to publish art across panama that makes people realize, “okay, that culture is being lost, but it’s time also for us to get it back.”

“instead of looking it as something maybe bad or very negative, we could look at it as something totally positive and something that could even make our society better,” he said.

although climate change threatens to push the guna people away from their island homes, the tragedy may allow them to regain part of their culture that has changed with  tourism, he said. however, it is still unclear how their economy will recover from the loss of tourism or how much of it they can reestablsih with the mainland as a base. in the meantime, only time will tell how the budding ecotourism industry at kalu yala may affect the culture of san miguel.

despite the challenges that arise from tourism and climate change, lópez believes that the native cultures in panama will survive.

“cultures are dynamic: we’ll lose some of it and then we will integrate new things,” he said. “at some point, what we had 100 years ago is not going to be the same anymore. but cultures (are) dynamic.”

separated by miles of ocean and a 2-hour drive, or a 50-mile hike, through the jungle, guna yala and kalu yala are two of panama’s most sustainable communities.

guna yala, part of the san blas islands in the caribbean, and kalu yala, a commune in the interior jungle, differ drastically in not only their locations, but also in contrasting heritages, culture, and history. what the two do share in common are beliefs and practices that revere the environment.

the guna people, one of the country’s eight main indigenous groups live on the guna yala islands as an independent province off the coast of northeast panama. more than 360 small islands make up the guna archipelago, but only about 50 are actually inhabited and many of which welcome tourists.

the stark contrast between mainland panama and guna yala is apparent even before setting foot on the islands. the water, astonishingly clear and filled with marine life, combined with white sands and palm trees make the perfect vacation spot. what is not immediately apparent, however, is the deeply rooted culture and traditions of the guna people who consider the islands sacred.  

according to aresio valiente lópez, a guna environmental lawyer and professor fighting for indigenous rights, one distinguishing characteristic of guna yala is their right of self-government as an autonomous province. 

a major component of the guna culture is the unique relationship with their environment, which can be seen through much of the artworks and traditional clothing made by guna people.

“most of the native american communities in the americas are very, very close to the land and to the mountains and to the sea and to the environment in general. the kuna people are not far from that,” said diwigdi “diwi” valiente, a 28-year-old guna environmental activist and entrepreneur.

while some aspects of guna cultural beliefs regarding the environment may align with the western concept of sustainability, they are not the same given their contrasting origins, usages, and connection to their respective cultures.

“there is supposed to be one prophet – similar to jesus – that taught us how to behave like humans,” valiente said, “we have this religion and way of thinking where we not only have the mother earth, but also the (father) sun.”

delfino davies, museum guide on the guna yala city island of carti sugtupu, explained that the dual aspect of mother and father is one of the most central aspects of guna religion. couplings are present everywhere in guna life and culture; all places and objects are assigned either female or male.

davies describes this coupling pattern that shows up distinctly in molas, the guna’s traditional artwork sewed into a square of cloth, later made into clothing for guna women. molas typically have a geometric element to them and reflect designs from guna legends and culture.

the guna’s distinctive cultural beliefs are closely connected to their beliefs about climate change, or in some cases, lack thereof.

valiente explains that many guna do not have opinions about climate change, simply because they don’t have sufficient access to information on the topic. many people in guna yala also don’t consider issues caused by climate change to be anything more than fluctuations in the weather, though they are seasonal witnesses to the increasing flooding linked to sea level rise as glaciers melt in polar regions.

“here, in the islands: there are months when the islands get completely flooded. you have water up to your ankles. imagine living for a month like that. there (are) people that still believe that’s because of nature itself,” valiente said.

abelardo “tito” nuñez davies, 40, who resides on small pelican island island with his mother and nephews, notes matter-of-factly that his family’s guna island is shrinking. the house, once in the center of the place, now flanks the sea. “what can i say? we’re here because of the grace of god.”

nuñez also explains that although he and his family have had to temporarily relocate to nearby islands during big storms, they haven’t even thought about permanently moving.

valiente sees climate change through a different lens as his people are disproportionately affected by it. “it’s super frustrating. it’s even worse because you try to explain (to) people climate change and they don’t understand it because they are not causing it,” he said.

“panama doesn’t produce anything; we are a country of service. a country that did not contribute to climate change at all.”

panama, as a developing country, does not hold much historical responsibility for the human-induced climate change present on the planet today given the country’s almost nonexistent role in industrialization. panama is slowly becoming more developed but is still largely a country of service, with tourism as one of its biggest industries.

the tourism industry in guna yala has boomed so much in recent years to the point where it now contributes 80% of their income. this large percentage begs the question of how sustainable tourism can be in the long run.

developing tourism options based on the mainland and seeking new directions for the economy are critical, said lópez, the guna environmental lawyer. he explains that the guna congress recently created a mixed enterprise in which people can buy shares for the first time. “before, all the enterprises that the congress had were private, but now they created a transportation company that’s 60% owned by the institution and it’s 40% available… for sale for everyone.” now the island residents will receive benefits from profits of all the boat traffic to the islands, he noted.

however, many guna hold strong ties to their beliefs and are not easily subjected to change from outside influence.

“a lot of people tend to go and sort of pass judgment on them like ‘oh their towns are so dirty and stuff,’” says panamanian architect ricardo arosemena. “but my response to that is: they could keep living exactly like that for a million years and they wouldn’t destroy anything and the way that we live — maybe you don’t see any garbage but we just destroy everything.”

“i mean, we have a culture that survived colonization from the spaniards. we are much more than the caribbean. and that’s something that we have not been able to explore and take advantage of as much as we could,” valiente said.

valiente is different from many other guna. he works in mainland panama with a primary focus in the sustainability industry and he also studied hospitality management and international business tourism at the césar ritz college in switzerland.

currently, valiente works with bodhi hostels, a business whose mission is to “inspire and encourage sustainable ways of living and travel.” valiente and his business partner, allan lim, recently opened up a new hostel location in kalu yala, a growing eco-city in the panamanian jungle.

keeping kalu yala’s mission in mind, lim and valiente incorporate sustainable practices into the creation and maintenance of their new hostel. in addition to using solar energy, “we try to apply all the cleaning practices that are organic: we use vinegar and water to clean,” lim said. the partnership also hires only local panamanians to work in their hostels.

in the words of the town’s ceo and creator, jimmy stice, kalu yala was founded with the intention to “build a new town that proves that civilization can live in a socially and environmentally responsible way.”

kalu yala’s mission is similar to the cultural beliefs of the guna people, in that both are environmentally conscious and structured around a sense of community. the eco-city’s name actually has guna origins, kalu meaning “house of spirits, and yala meaning “land” or “mountain.”

although kalu yala is very modern and the guna culture has been present for centuries, valiente is a bridge between these two communities, being the first guna person to work at kalu yala, but hopefully not the last.

just like in the guna islands, there are clear signs of tourism booming in kalu yala. in addition to the new bodhi hostel, there also are plans to build permanent residences in the eco-city.

“we’ll start introducing the small houses which will allow for people who want to sleep on a real mattress so $150 nights is also inclusive, just like $13 a night is inclusive,” stice said.

in addition to the small houses, kalu yala plans to build larger charleston-style homes and attract permanent residents as well.

“so i think we’ll be back up to 200 people by the end of next year,” with interns and staff, stice said. with guests and hotel tourists, he anticipates a community of about 300. “and then we’ll actually introduce home sales in 2020 or 2021, and we’ll start adding maybe 50 full-time residents a year based on that.”

with all this new construction and development in kalu yala, it will be interesting to see how the community can still incorporate their sustainability values into these plans, and what they will do to potentially offset their emissions.

fifty miles over four days, from the jungle to the caribbean sea. seven hikers left kalu yala, a sustainable eco-town in the making located in the panamanian jungle, and began their trek to the caribbean coast. these hikers soon found out that, at some points, this untested trail did not even exist.

bushwhacking through the jungle was never on the agenda for the seven hikers, interns and directors developing sustainability projects at this experimental community. but they had to improvise to reach their destination safely – or at all.

kalu yala intern carter angel, one of the explorers on the trip, didn’t even know much about hiking. “i think it was the hardest thing i’ve ever done in my entire life and it was as rewarding as it was challenging,” said angel, 31, a kalu yala resident from virginia. the challenges they faced ranged from language barriers and physical injury to a treacherous climb through the mountains that took them in a circle – back to their starting point a day later.

the kalu yala hikers were accompanied by local panamanian guides, “two farmers that knew their way but didn’t know the trails,” angel said. at some points the hikers saw that they were going off-trail but communicating the ideas in spanish to the guides, who were looking for shortcuts with well-trained eyes, was difficult.

nevertheless, the guides proved essential to the group’s survival. “we walked by a wasp nest and (the guide) just took his hand and plugged up the hole so they couldn’t get out,” angel said. the locals’ knowledge of the area and the environment allowed them to “hear and see things that anybody else wouldn’t be able to hear or see,” she said.

marie stringer, co-owner of tres brazos outfitters – an outdoor adventure recreation business at kalu yala – helped plan this trip, and described the trail as the “supreme jungle” meant for adventurous tourists who want to explore the way to the ocean rather than fly by it in a 1.5-hour truck ride. she tracked the hikers as they took this trip and saw that they were walking in the wrong direction at points. but angel and her companions had to circle back, and as a result, fell far behind schedule. “we were in such a time crunch that there were points where we were literally running,” angel said. they had to make it in four days – or their supplies would run out.

in the midst of this adventure-gone-wrong, the travel team diminished from seven to four. “jess, who did the filming got injured, and then jimmy’s shoes fell apart,” angel said. another hiker, bailey, also had to return to kalu yala. “luckily though, it was kind of a blessing in disguise because they gave us their food and some of their clothes,” angel said. carter continued on this trek with kalu yala staffers tara mclaughlin, sasha papich, and wes stiner.

these risks did make this experience unforgettable for the hikers, but so did the rewards. “there’s some really beautiful points on the trail and i think the four of us really really bonded,” angel said, and then she went on explaining how they saw bioluminescent plankton during a boat ride.

although the trip did not go as planned, this is what happens when the trail is untested, “they’ll be doing it again next semester,” said stringer, from tres brazos outfitters.  

hiking is a popular sport at kalu yala, a sustainable community in the making in the panamanian jungle, where interns develop their own ecological projects for agriculture, living designs, construction, and water resources. a group of these kalu yala residents went on a 50-mile hiking adventure and ended up walking in circles on uncharted trails, reemphasizing the importance of navigation.

since the majority of the students at kalu yala are not local, they are not experts in their knowledge of the area. with new technology, however, navigation can be a tool the hiker carries to the trail. the alltrails application is a technological innovation for navigation that, through an ongoing ecological tourism project, is being adapted to the trails around kalu yala.

app guides hikers, even offline

marie stringer, co-owner of tres brazos outfitters, has been working on this project for months. “it turns your cell phone into an offline gps tracker that tracks your points as you hike outside of cell signal. you can download the maps offline and then utilize your point on the map without wi-fi (or cellular service) to see the topography ahead,” said stringer, as she explained the purpose of alltrails.

the staff at kalu yala have been mapping the trails around the area to add to the app, founded by a group of bay area investors in 2010. as a result, “instead of requiring that a staff member or student know the trail, it allows people to go do this on their own,” stringer said. she is referring to the trails meant for beginners, indicated in the app as the less challenging ones — unlike the grueling 50-mile trail to the caribbean that required guides.  

discovering kalu yala via the app

alltrails will benefit the hiker as an individual and kalu yala as a community. stringer describes it as a social sharing app. “we’ve had people just show up on our property because of the trails that we mapped for our internal use,” she recalls. seeing as there aren’t many trails mapped around the area, people began to see kalu yala as a good place to stop for a break or even for the night.

more visitors at kalu yala could even help in the community’s mission. jimmy stice, founder and ceo of kalu yala, describes how this institution would achieve its most basic goal by spreading “environmental and social values to people who want to come here.

“what i’d really like, though, is to create an economy here where you don’t have to just come here to be a student or come here to camp for the weekend — you can apply for a job here like any real city.”

as kalu yala scales up to a larger community, people who would initially wander in using alltrails could learn more and spread the word about sustainable living. this expansion would lead to more guests and eventually, employees to help upkeep the sustainable ecological programs.

helping people experience nature

this app also solves the issue of accessibility. “what alltrails does is it allows hiking like that to be accessible to people that don’t have that sort of very specialized gear, because the gear that you need is your cell phone,” stringer said. the fact that the app is free also allows everyone to be able to access an outdoor adventure.

carter angel, a hiker and a recent graduate of the internships at kalu yala, recalls a time when she took a hike a saw a rare red frog. the app, by making hiking easier to access, allows more people to experience nature, in nature. “there’s things along that whole trail that you would never see anywhere else because you’re literally just, you’re there,” angel said.

however, angel believes that the paths she worked on are in an early developmental phase, and so she did not yet post many of the trails she mapped.

stringer reemphasizes this current challenge: “i have this amazing vision of it, but it requires actually a lot of time and energy on my part to make it what i want it to be.” she is planning to continue working on this project next semester.

a tool for education

the vision those at kalu yala have for alltrails extends beyond the mapping of a few hiking trails, however.

farm tours, usually given by the farm manager to kalu yala visitors, are being adapted into self-guided tours with alltrails, from the chicken coops to the red cranberry hibiscus bushes.

“i’ll go through and do the farm tour and add every plant that i know,” stringer said. “when people come here they can grab the brochure and then download alltrails, upload our farm tour and literally walk around the farm clicking on the pictures … getting an explanation of what that is, how it builds a soil and what sort of nutrients it needs.”

zoe st. john, the agriculture director at kalu yala, said the self-guided tours will give her more time to work on farm projects. “that means that i get roughly an extra, anywhere from an hour to six hours each week, just to work on the farm,” st. john said. “i am so thrilled.”

the alltrails app can be loaded with unlimited information. stringer explains that the project is not yet complete because she is still collecting “culinary information or any sort of medicinal information,” among other facts about the agriculture at kalu yala to include in the app before posting it.  

a living project

using the mapped trails and, in order to map others, angel created a ‘hiking challenge’ for the staff and students at kalu yala. she wanted to build something that won’t “just get eaten by the jungle,” meaning that it would last for years and get passed on, unlike some sustainability projects that require constant maintenance. 

angel created a point system showing scale of difficulty to encourage people to head out for that first hiking high. “if you think you’re going on a hike and your machete-ing the whole time, like, that’s not a hike — that’s a scramble. so i wanted it to be something that is fun and safe and enjoyable,” angel said.

while on track with the goal of becoming “the world’s most sustainable town,” kalu yala got hit by a four letter word that challenged their mission, while temporarily stymying respectability and enrollment at its educational institute. in the damp environment of a rainforest town, the four-letter word is not “rain,” but a more-than-devastating factor that started with the wet season in fall 2016.

this quartet of letters temporarily washed away much of the participation in this eco-community concept of real estate entrepreneur jimmy stice.

the word is “vice.” its creation, “jungletown.” “jungletown” is the product of filmmaker ondi timoner, a series filmed in fall 2016 featuring kalu yala through the dramatized stories of disgruntled interns at the remote, sustainable enclave in a hard-to-reach valley of panama.

once the “docu-series” hit the internet in spring 2017, kalu yala was berated with some image-crushing accusations, many baseless in the eyes of staffers at kalu yala. articles and posts online began to circulate, calling kalu yala founder jimmy stice a “conman” and “controversial” and kalu yala “neocolonialist” and a “cult” on reddit.

flash forward to spring 2018 and the enrollment is dramatically smaller. at an institute that would proudly host nearly 100 students, it was graced by only 17 young, new trainees this spring. but stice and the kalu yala staff see enrollment re-gaining traction for summer with an emphasis on student innovation.

tara mclaughlin, president of kalu yala, describes “jungletown” as “a great example of media gone wrong.” mclaughlin, who grew up in central america and now works with the students and residents of the town, harped on the role of media in kalu yala’s worldwide appearance.

at the institute, there are more than a dozen programs offered to the interns to give them hands-on experiences while contributing to the progression of the town. programs include engineering, political science, media arts, biology, culinary arts, and many more.

and this is where the media arts team comes into play –– this creative group at kalu yala acknowledged the dangers of having an outdated website while facing the internet onslaught of trolls, bad press, and hurtful words. they are launching a dynamic revamp of their website with new material produced by interns and staff –– a hard task to continuously conquer when relying on internet support powered by solar panels. ironically, vice contributed $60,000 for the creation of the panel array in the middle of the jungle during one of their filming sessions.

in a struggle to properly inform their audience with relevant information, mclaughlin lauds the work of the interns working in the media arts department at kalu yala. “the media content that we’re trying to put out there is solely to combat the negative crap that has come out of this ‘jungletown’ experience,” mclaughlin said.

“so, we’ve been trying to combat that through our own media campaign, that’s why the media program this semester has been so amazing, that’s why ruby got a standing ovation,” mclaughlin noted.

ruby foster is an intern who created this video for kalu yala during her internship in spring 2018. 

at the end of the 10-week internship program, students had the opportunity to present the deliverables from their student-led project in their time in panama.

“it’s like super bowl week for me,” stice said excitedly in passing, prior to the presentations. all of the hard work from every aspect, whether it be media, agricultural, work done at the distillery, educational efforts, etc., is put on display for the entire town to rouse excitement and forward progress as the semester ends.

the media team had their own presentation the night before, screening their videos and photographs taken during their adventures in the jungle.

the media team was led by kalu yala media lab director taylor epps for spring 2018. the texas native was the first “completely unaffiliated” director for the media lab department in the town –– she arrived at the town only a few weeks prior to the new students. she knew nothing about “jungletown” at this point.

“when i first came on, i realized very quickly that there were some people that immediately associated me with ‘jungletown,’” epps said. “because i was media, i had that ‘media’ target on my back and so that made people uncomfortable so i had to work a little harder for people to trust me.”

she discussed the role of their media in the environment, particularly about how to understand the dynamic between producing media while being conscious of the sustainability of the project.

“that was the biggest part of our journey: how your voice is affecting your environment, knowing what that voice is, why people should be listening to it,” epps added. “you have the product, but tell me more about how it affects the environment…what’s the tangible outcome we’re working toward.”

epps said that she did not want her students to go forward without being able to identify the tangibility of their outcomes, particularly their carbon footprint.

jessica wiegandt is a junior at brevard college who came to kalu yala to satisfy her interest in outdoor journalism while in search of a media internship. at college, she is majoring in wilderness leadership and experiential education and english with an emphasis in journalism. during spring at kalu yala, wiegandt worked on stockpiling blog posts to promote an active blog even after the students complete their 10 weeks.

a barrier the media interns dealt with was working around their environment, as the town is solar-powered and sometimes faces challenging weather, which is not easy for a team focused on electronic equipment. while at kalu yala, the question of sustainability plays a key role in the work done by interns and residents.

“when you’re working with media, a lot of your stuff is just going online and so it’s not really taking up a lot of space –– it’s not going to rot away back into the jungle,” wiegandt noted. “the projects we’ve done: is it sustainable? yeah, because it’s going up on a blog to be shared and reshared… and as soon as it goes away it’s just a megabit out in the internet.”

for a small town in a panamanian valley, the internet, and the trail it makes online play immense roles. the stories that come out of kalu yala have a widespread reach, as the staff has discovered in light of the release of “jungletown.”

“we just had to admit the power of video,” founder stice said. “and second of all, third-party perspectives are worth a hell of a lot more than first-person perspectives.”

“and that’s where, for me, the students are the secret sauce, because if ruby foster was being paid by jimmy stice to make a video about how kalu yala is, i would think the video is pretty much just propaganda,” he said.

for stice, the work produced by the media team was not only impressive, but it also will help combat the internet trolls, while the town regains a credible voice online.

“vice pretty much invalidated me as a character –– my voice has a lot less weight than it used to have, so i need people to speak for me and the best people who can speak for you are the ones who aren’t on your payroll,” stice said.

the next steps for kalu yala are to utilize the student-produced work to create an understandable, actual portrayal of the eco-town with a mission online while drowning out the “trolls” and bad press about the place through search engine optimization (seo).

“right now we are recovering. we got punched in the face by a monster 10 months ago – vice took a very direct shot at us,” stice said. “i have learned a lot about media and online and content value and seo and reputation offenses.”

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about the author: medill student colin boyle can be reached at colinbphoto@u.northwestern.edu and on twitter: @colinbphoto.