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.”

as a toddler, diwigdi valiente ogled at the strangers on his family’s remote island. these sailboats brought visitors unlike anyone he had ever seen: blue-eyed, blonde-haired, and “super pale.” as these sailors stopped at his island en route to colombia, valiente gathered vegetables from the island garden. “take, take, take!” he would declare, a natural entertainer. today, it’s no surprise that valiente runs an innovative hostel business.

valiente’s mother is panamanian and his father is guna, one of panama’s eight indigenous groups. originating in colombia, spaniards uprooted the guna in the 16th century. this spurred centuries of guna migration to panama’s san blas archipelago, also referred to as the comarca guna yala. over 360 islands constitute the comarca, with approximately 49 currently occupied. the guna peoples’ next move, however, will be propelled by an entirely different force.

due to rising sea levels, the guna residents of the san blas islands face major flooding and are expected to eventually evacuate to panama’s mainland. if you ask valiente when exactly the guna must pack up their lives and leave, he can’t give a definitive answer.

“that’s a very difficult question. four years ago, there was a budget to move the island people to the mainland. the (panama) government changed, and the budget was gone,” valiente says. “there is not a specific time.”

the fate of san blas may resemble that of other vulnerable land masses. a 2017 study by the journal of coastal conservation found that islands in the western pacific ocean have experienced a rate of sea level rise that is about four times greater than the global average. the climate change-induced factors behind this disparate sea level rise include changes in trade winds and melting ice sheets. as a result of significant flooding, small islands in micronesia have vanished completely.

as the guna contend with the repercussions of global industrialization, people like diwigdi valiente see opportunity.

“i am committed to building the most sustainable hostel chain in the world,” valiente says.

he left his job as international tax auditor at panama’s ministry of economy and finance to found the bodhi hostel chain in 2014. valiente and his business partner allan lim both consider themselves environmentally conscious. most importantly, valiente says, they are equipped to handle the business side of things. valiente and lim hold each hold bachelor’s degrees in hospitality, management and business.

the pair began bodhi modestly and opened a hostel inside a volcano, in panama’s village of valle de antón. within its first year, bodhi el valle de antón was named the best hostel in the country.

valiente says the company is focused on more than just hospitality. bodhi’s non-profit mission, burwigan, educates guna children — a generation of potential climate refugees — about climate change. valiente accomplishes this through art projects, demonstrating the precarious fate of their islands through watercolor paintings of sea creatures.

“i realize that if we don’t make a change soon, it’s going to be too late for us,” valiente says. “but i would say the more access to information you have, the better. that’s what i’m trying to do with my project.”

the second bodhi hostel opened this march at kalu yala, a sustainable “town” tucked in the tres brazos valley. eco-inclined tourists, or perhaps those looking for a party in the middle of the panamanian jungle, can lodge in a hostel run completely on solar panels. if you’re looking for an idyllic beach vacation, you can opt for the guna’s san blas islands.

just as these islands begin to submerge, an indigenous tourism industry run by guna families thrives.

“more and more (guna) people are having businesses in tourism” valiente says. “people that used to dive for lobster or fish will not do that anymore.”

‘symbols of resilience’

it’s impossible to traverse panama without encountering embroidered patches of fabric with striking embroideries that seem to move on their own. mola art has become an quintessential souvenir, though they represent more than a mere decoration. the molas preserve traditional guna stories, which are rooted in a reverence for the earth as dictated by prophet ibeorgun. a hummingbird flits across the mola, delivering the message of the gods. vertical stripes of thread denote the sun shining through the bamboo walls of the guna home.

molas are a symbol of resilience, valiente says, created after spanish missionaries demanded that gunas wear clothing. they display the same patterns historically employed in traditional body art, rooted in the mother earth and father sun binary that is present in each aspect of everyday life. this notion of living in balance with nature was present long before western notions of carbon emissions and battery-operated cars. yet, it’s all at risk. as flooding threatens the gunas, so does time itself.

“we are losing culture. we are losing the people that know the medicine plants,” says aresio valiente lópez, a lawyer and professor at the university of panama. he specializes in agricultural, environmental and indigenous law. he’s a consultant. he’s a poet and a dancer. he is also diwigdi’s father.

lópez says he has witnessed both domestic and global corporations attempt to take over indigenous territories to develop hotels and hydroelectric plants. it’s no surprise, since 60 percent of forest areas belong to panama’s indigenous groups. seemingly-positive initiatives like eco-tourism and renewable energy development are at odds with generations of people who live to defend their land.

but climate change poses an even greater danger to the guna than corporate exploitation, as they are set to lose their homes in the comarca. while many gunas attribute increased storms and flooding to the gods, people like valiente lópez are taking action.

“people like us, who got a much more western education do believe in climate change…that we have to get organized and be strategically prepared for what is coming to us,” he says. lópez hopes to form an environmental department under the sovereign guna government, as well as consultations with panama’s minister of environment. so far, the department hasn’t reached out to any indigenous groups, he says.

the private sector has assisted the guna, however, by improving access to electricity with the solution of alternative energy. between 2006 and 2013, the inter-american development bank collaborated with the panamanian government on the rural electrification program. the effort provided rural areas like the san blas islands with “off-grid power systems” like photovoltaic solar panels in its first phase.

the $20.8 million loan doesn’t, however, account for a culture permanently altered by global industrialization. but by any measure of the term, the guna manage a sustainable culture with modest reliance on energy.

“why would you have to teach them to live sustainably when they have been living sustainably for all this time?” valiente says. “we are the ones teaching you.”

kalu yala goal: empowering individuals

and at kalu yala, the primarily american and primarily white staff is still learning. at the moment, the town is far from the “disney world of sustainability” that founder and president jimmy stice envisions — there’s a high employee turnover rate and construction on the first round of 20 homes has barely begun. still, his mission is clear.

“how do you create a place where when you buy a cup of cold brew coffee, you’re actually sequestering carbon, distributing income and creating socio-economic mobility?” stice says. kalu yala’s coffee is grown in nearby boquete and roasted on-site, by the way.

stice works with interns and staff to establish a model of living where the residents themselves make up the supply chain, which he envisions would eventually grow to a global market that empowers the individual. kalu yala has made small steps in this direction, most notably grow practically all of their own produce. when the intimate community of employees and student interns sits down to enjoy eggplant-quinoa salad and scrambled eggs with plantains, they can track their meal to merely yards away.

“right now i don’t give a shit if this place has 500 people and it’s a cute little village. (if) it fulfills that mission, i’m fine,” stice says. “if we go and build 20 of these things and they’ve got a 5 million person population, that would be really nice too.”

stice and his head staff occupy what appears to be an ordinary office plopped into a jungle. if you venture into a particular thicket of palm leaves, you will find a clearing with a humming wi-fi router and employees pecking away on their laptops.

in another wooded corner of kalu yala, engineering director sasha papich can be found tinkering with a distillation pot and fermentation tanks. while he spends the majority of his days working with engineering students, papich returns to his makeshift distillery late into the night. he is assisting kalu yala’s mission by building a sustainable rum distillery. it’s yet another component of kalu yala’s business model — the distillery will serve as an attraction for guests and currently provides rum to the town bar.

as a bio-resource engineer, papich brings a lot to the table. he wants to make the distilling process completely carbon-neutral. in addition to using solar panels for hydrolysis, he aims to use sugar cane juice from local farmers brought over by mules. to render the system carbon-negative, papich will plant trees nearby to offset emissions. the rum’s methane by-products can be used to extract biofuel from algae, according to recent kalu yala intern research.

papich has found that his engineering niche, particularly his knowledge of renewable energy, makes him a valuable commodity. he says he has witnessed a shift in the corporate mindset. entrepreneurs like jimmy stice recognize that there’s profit in being green. the international energy agency found that renewable energy sources provided two-thirds of the world’s net new power capacity in 2016.

“some companies are doing it for the right reasons, some are trying to profit,” papich says. “companies who are trying to work with other companies to make the best product and reduce the most carbon emissions as possible, those are the ones you hear about. as long as they’re making a difference, i’m ok with it.”

the personalities behind this movement are not all behemoths like elon musk, captivating the world with visions of electric cars and hyperloops. valiente certainly possesses the appropriate charm, and he’s a finance mogul in his own right. he insists that a business can only tout a passion for the environment if it brings in a profit, a win-win partnership of sustainability and sound economics. “sustainability is actually a way to make money and have an impact on society and environment at the same time,” valiente says. “if you don’t make money and survive out of it, you are not sustainable.” he slaps the table for emphasis.

stay or go? and if they stay — how?

valiente says he has seen pelican island, one of the popular san blas tourism spots, shrink in half since his last visit. abelardo “tito” nuñez-davies hosts tourist visits to the island, which have included a boat of nudists. he was raised in panama city and only joined his mother here 15 years ago, after he injured his back in a car accident.

i meet him as he emerges from his thatched palm-leaf home where his mother cooks him breakfast. the house used to sit squarely in the middle of the island, davies says. today, the turquoise caribbean laps at the home’s edges. he recalls one storm that flooded the entire island. during his rescue, davies did not have time to salvage any belongings. “what can i say?” davies says. “we’re here because of the grace of god.”

davies says that, in order to sustain tourism, he’s attempting to build a sea wall and an artificial coral reef that would keep the island intact. this process will kill fish, though, which is the main source of food for davies and his mother.

he says he hasn’t even thought about leaving. yet, for many gunas there will be no other option. they have already moved once, after all. professor aresio valiente lópez does not necessarily think of this as a bad thing.

“at some point, what we had 100 years ago is not going to be the same anymore,” aresio valiente lópez says. “but cultures (are) dynamic.”

speckled just north of the vivacious panamanian coastline is a chain of islands facing the threat of disappearing. these are the san blas islands in the caribbean and their daunting fate is not determined by the doing of their inhabitants, rather by the world around them.

the guna people came to the san blas islands to escape spanish colonization and have remained on these islands, though many live in mainland panama and in colombia as well. with their lifestyle inspired by two deities –– bab dummat (big father) and nan dummat (big mother) –– the guna have their faith rooted in nature around them.

the guna faith honors symbols from the world surrounding this ancient people, including hummingbirds, roots, and other powerful aspects of their environment. religion plays an irreplaceable role in their culture, with its nuances spread throughout day to day life, from daily routines, to health and science, to celebrations of life events.

the san blas islands –– where roughly 30,000 guna reside –– include about 365 islands stretching along northern panama in the caribbean sea. but only some 50 are occupied. many of the islands appear much like those pictured in these images, with sapphire blue water surrounding pale, white beaches dappled with bending palm trees and traditional buildings.

yet these beautiful islands are shrinking dramatically with sea level rise linked to climate change – a shift that sparks confusion among many locals. while the climate around them is changing rapidly, however, their contributions to pollution are minuscule in comparison to their continental neighbors.

the big picture is this: the sea is rising, causing these islands to slip away into the caribbean blue.

alberdo nuñez davies has lived in guna yala for 15 years, helping his family’s tourism business on pelican island, a small san blas island roughly five miles north of the coast of panama. his mother makes traditional molas incorporated in guna clothing and handcrafted beaded jewelry that she sells to tourists.  

when asked about the impact of the island shrinking on their tourism business, nuñez davies said through his translator, “do you see the rocks over there? (we) are trying to build a structure, a seawall and they have to build that so they don’t lose more sand and lose more tourism. and they are applying to fill it with coral reef which is also like really, really sad because they are destroying what gives them food.”

in his 15 years, nuñez davies says that the island has shrunk dramatically –– the building that clings to the edge of the island used to be in the middle of the sandy isle.

he has also seen an increase in storms and high winds, which have caused flooding and life-threatening winds of the island in the past. in response to “does he think the storms will get less intense as the time goes on?” nuñez davies simply said “ojala,” meaning “god willing.”

this deep reliance on the guna faith can be tied to its presence in the everyday life. on the city island of guna yala, locals respond to the sound of a helmet shell being blown for three different reasons: to wake up and call the workers to the mainland, to alert islanders that the fishermen are returning with the day’s catch, and to ward off earthquakes, storms, and high water.

while blowing the shell at a rapid pace, guna medicine man delfino davies states that it means, “all my spirits –– i am working,” in a way to thwart the aforementioned disasters.

“two hundred years ago we are here, in the small islands, but no big earthquake, no storm, because right now when the guna wake up, we blow that (the shell),” davies said.

while guna tradition is alive and well for many communities, the islands are slipping out of view, causing residents to fear that their culture will have the same fate.

“these people are going to move because of climate change,” guna hostel owner and climate change activist diwigdi valiente said. “and it’s not their fault.” valiente recently hosted an event honoring his guna culture through art. at this event, diwigdi said he recognized the gravity of the indigenous people’s situation.

“if you ask me that question, i think it’s a great opportunity for everyone to embrace a culture that’s about to get lost,” diwigdi said.

diwigdi went on to talk about his exhibition of guna artwork by guna children that “tell the stories of our insular countrymen, (being one of) the first displaced by global warming, with the desire to draw the attention of authorities, international organizations and the public in general,” according to a translation of the facebook event.

“all these treaties and philosophical knowledge that has lead us to where we are now – it’s being lost,” aresio valiente lópez, president of the institute of investigation and development of guna yala and lawyer of the general guna congress, said through his son’s translating. lópez attributes this loss to the passing, mostly of old age, of the practicing guna people. he feels that it is up to parents to teach kids to love the land.

this admiration for the environment is visible through the religious reverence toward animals and natural forces.

while the guna environment is facing dramatic changes through pollution and rising sea levels, the indigenous culture is also tainted by globalization –– a contributor to climate change through its widespread promotion of detrimental decisions, such as the use of fossil fuels and improperly handling waste materials.

lópez has an optimistic outlook regarding the fate of the guna people. “we are not escaping from the reality of globalization, and we are still keeping part of our culture alive,” he said.

western aspects have seeped into guna reality, much like how climate change’s impacts have.

only time will tell what the guna people will do in the face of dramatic climate shifts, with fear that this will spark evacuation from the islands, leaving behind centuries of success, stories, and culture while heading to a rapidly westernizing mainland.

“it will take (my generation) to actually solve the problems that my dad and his (generation) had,” diwigdi said. “because his generation was the one that built a bridge between the kuna culture and the panamanian culture, and more integrating the panamanian culture. now that i talk to you, i realize that maybe now that my dad and his generation (has built) that bridge, it’s time for my culture to bring back and try to get back as much as we can from our communities.”

———

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

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.”

———

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

diwigdi valiente grew up on the san blas islands with his parents and relatives, among the native guna people who now face exile from these islands they have called home for generations. panama’s independent province of guna yala includes some 360 islands located in the caribbean sea off the coast of mainland panama. but rising sea levels as a result of climate change threaten to inundate the islands and take them underwater in as little as 20 years.

valiente lives in panama city and is co-founder of bodhi hostels, which has two locations that bring eco-tourists into natural surroundings. and he has plans for another in the san blas islands, where he visits often. many tourists frequent guna yala for vacations. while they help support the economy of the native guna people living on the islands, they’re also changing guna yala’s culture at a time when people need their traditions most. valiente translates for his father aresio valiente lópez – a lawyer and professor who is also from guna yala – as lópez explains that, for the guna people, 80% of their $2.5 million annual income comes from tourism.

abelardo “tito” nuñez davies lives on pelican island with his mother in guna yala. he says that in recent years, he’s seen a rise in tourism on the islands, resulting in less personal interactions between visitors and their hosts. valiente says he believes sustainability is important to tourism “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. and we have the choice of making that a good or a bad impact.”

locals are making a profit by facilitating transportation and hospitality for tourists and many people have transitioned from traditional lifestyles, such as fishing. according to valiente, tourism “has affected the way families behave and interact, because now they don’t eat the same things they used to eat.” instead of drinking plantain juice, the guna people buy coke. cans litter the shores of some islands.

as the way of life is changing, so are the islands themselves. fifteen years ago, when he came to the san blas islands where he lives with his mother, davies’ house was in the middle of pelican island, the size of a football field. now, the water reaches the edge of his family’s home. as winds and storms worsen due to climate change, tourist boats are unable to come to the island and the family’s income is in danger of decreasing. does he believe that the storms will get better? davies responds “ojalá,” or god willing. the family does not yet have plans to move.

the way of life of the guna people largely affected valiente in his studies of hospitality management and international business tourism in switzerland and his creation of bodhi hostels: “i grew up in an environment of socialism, to be honest with you. within my community, everything was shared. . . . so for me, i’ve seen this kind of lifestyle, which i think is the lifestyle we have to have in order for this planet to survive.” to carry this out, valiente and his business partner allan lim started bodhi hostels, an ecotourism business that has had a hostel in el valle de antón in panama for three years and a new one at the eco-community of kalu yala that opened in late march.

kalu yala is a sustainable and growing town in the valley of a rain forest near san miguel, panama. valiente has seen tourism’s effect on both the environment and the community of guna yala and kalu yala in very different ways. having experienced both a rural childhood and a western education and adult life, valiente says that “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.”

similar to the way the guna have lived sustainably for hundreds of years, kalu yala’s mission, according to ceo jimmy stice, is “to build a new town that proves that civilization can live in a socially and environmentally responsible way.” stice hired lim and valiente to construct a hostel for his growing town because of their similar design languages: valiente and lim build the furniture themselves, practice composting, and access the power of solar panels at kalu yala. at kalu yala, residents use 8 percent of the carbon footprint of the typical american, little running water, and eat farm-to-table meals.

jorinck knoester, hospitality and events manager at kalu yala, says that the community hostel is a great way to promote ecotourism and encourage guests to learn about kalu yala’s mission, taking a sustainable lifestyle with them when they leave. kalu yala offers programming, like farm tours or workshops, to guests, who are allowed to stay anywhere from one to seven days at the hostel. as of recent, small homes are being built in an effort to encourage more residents to stay permanently in the town and to establish more consistency at kalu yala.

wes stiner, head of design and construction at kalu yala, is in charge of building the permanent small houses. kalu yala plans to build three houses this year, consisting of 500-square-foot carriage houses behind larger homes. these permanent houses will help contribute to stice’s goal of a sustainable community of “5,000 people in 30 years.” stice highlights the importance of permanent residents or people who come down to vacation in the homes. “right now, we exclude a lot of the wisest people in the world from coming here by the fact that it’s not that comfortable.”

stiner exclusively is utilizing sustainable resources for the project. the houses are mainly constructed of amargo amargo wood, harvested from areas flooded by the panama canal, so builders don’t have to cut down new trees. ultimately, as stice puts it, “over 50 percent of the world’s solid waste streams are from construction activities, whether that’s roads or buildings.” kalu yala’s goal is sustainable building to lessen that number and to have dwellers, both temporary and permanent, take away from kalu yala’s projects and overall mission.

what the residents of kalu yala and guna yala know is that the way to work toward fixing climate change it to prove that it’s economically beneficial, especially regarding tourism. stice elaborates on his view of tourism: “the whole reason that cities exist is a way of pooling human capital and concentrating human exchange so that humans can actually create more value as a civilization by being allowed to exchange. tourism is the first step in doing that.” in this way, ecotourism can be seen as a sustainable approach as kalu yala plans to spread their ideals and their property. while the same may not go for the disappearing san blas islands, tourism does serve as a means of profit and a way for people to see the effects of their actions.

while sustainable living has always been ingrained in the culture of the guna people, valiente sees a disconnect with how tourism affects their traditions. but at the end of the day, seeing how others live – be that the guna people or the residents of kalu yala – helps one realize how to better themselves and their way of living. and that seems to be a goal of both locations as tourist attractions. stice agrees, as he confirms this mission: “it’s a lot easier for you to make an impact by getting 10 people to do 10 percent better, than for you to do 100 percent better.”

on the edge of a sun-drenched caribbean island, a young man in a floral speedo strikes a yoga pose. he stands apart from the throng of beachgoers, gazing off pensively toward the horizon. after his meditation on the warm, white beach, he joins newfound friends for a drink – and finds a long-lost cousin – all within the hour.

diwigdi valiente, 28, crosses between cultures as an environmental advocate and entrepreneur. very few links bind the san blas islands of guna yala – the autonomous province of the indigenous guna people in panama – and kalu yala, the self-described “sustainable town” underway in the tres brazos valley. but valiente is one of them.

in spring 2018, valiente and business partner allan lim opened their second bodhi hostel, their venture in ecotourism, on the lush grounds of kalu yala. the duo studied hospitality at the same césar ritz college campuses in switzerland, missed each other by a year and several thousand miles, then connected through a friend back in panama.

there, they found that valiente’s free spirit blended perfectly with lim’s strategic thinking – right brain met left brain to mold the bodhi business model. though bodhi keeps “enlightenment through travel” and sustainable living at its core, it is, after all, a business.

“if you cannot make a business that can make money, and with that money then you can make good for the people and for the environment, and with that good for the environment and the people you can make more money,” valiente said. “if you are not able to achieve that, then you are not sustainable.”

ringed by palm trees on the san blas islands, he slapped a wood table in the community dining hall of the cabañas niabub for emphasis. his grandparents live on these islands, his father was raised there, and he spent much of his childhood surrounded by the guna “environment of socialism” of sharing.

since he was young, the guna community immersed him in communal sharing, the lifestyle he believes we must have “in order for this planet to survive.” switzerland, however, crystallized environmental sustainability for him – a term unknown to most of the guna community. but living in equilibrium with nature pervades the lifestyle of the people.

sustainability as a force of balance with nature is stitched into the fabric of guna life with the seamlessness of traditional molas. this indigenous people has subsisted off the panamanian and colombian land since before the spanish invasion; hunting, fishing, farming. the modern interpretation of “sustainability,” however, remains distant.

as global sea levels creep higher, the comarca faces one of the growing litany of threats to indigenous island people who will be forced to move because of climate change. a human forced change in climate patterns is neither widely discussed, accepted, nor understood on the islands where people are far removed from the lifestyles causing global warming and sea level rise. resistance to a seemingly inevitable move to the mainland is one among many pressing problems.

“we are facing many issues, and i think it’s going to take a group of people,” valiente said. “people of my age: people in their 30s, above 25 that already (are) working through the same” love of culture but see a change, he said. “i realize that maybe now that my dad and his generation (built) that bridge, it’s time for my culture to bring back and try to get back as much as we can from our communities.”

valiente is a cultural liaison of sorts, in constant flux between “the city” (panama city) where he spent much of his childhood, the islands where his grandparents live, and bodhi hostel locations at kalu yala and el valle de antón. he embodies the bridge that spans from the traditional nose ring of his grandmother to the guna youth to the entrepreneurial outside world.

that bridge bears the weight of an entire community – with an incredible support beam: his father, aresio valiente lópez, a university of panama law professor and lawyer of the general guna congress. there is a glowing filament of pride between the two.

valiente teared up introducing his father’s work as a professor at the university of panama where he is an expert in agricultural law, environmental law and human rights; a writer, poet, dancer, bohemian. “the students have to overcome the teachers,” lópez responded. a parent is a child’s first teacher, he said. one can only hope their children will achieve more than them – like, he says, his son did.

“he’s happy that at least i’m doing something good, something good for the house of all of us,” valiente said in translation. “because it doesn’t matter what language we talk, or what religion we have. we have all the same house, which is in our language napguana, which means mother earth.”

in the guna religion, the great mother (nan dummad) exists alongside the great father (bab dummad). close to the land, the sea and the environment in general, the people believe in nature. they place their faith in the world around them as well as a higher power, but this can prevent a belief in the hard science behind climate change.

the elders and those in charge of the sovereign guna congress, valiente says, are “super wise, super wise – but when you put them next to me, we have seen two different worlds… we can have a different perspective and a different view, but at the same time, these people were trained 30 years, learning about our traditions.”

while he fights to preserve traditional culture, valiente has also embraced a modern way of life. coming out of the closet opened doorways toward self-expression, liberation, and the art he creates today, his business partner said.

“i think a lot of people that are homosexual in our society, they’ve been living in that space for so long,” lim said, “that when you break out, it not only lets you express yourself, but it gives you the power — powers you to do anything. diwigdi has that.”

valiente does have that. the self-described “idea hatcher” has that x-factor that allows him to flow from a professional post as a transfer pricing analyst in panama’s ministry of economy and finances to founding burwigan, an art project teaching guna kids about climate change. he is a change maker, and his tool of choice is tourism.

“when you travel to another place, you not only travel for yourself, you travel to blow your mind,” he said. “tourism is a way to enlighten your life and to see how other people live and to learn from that and to teach what you have.”

the world is an ever-changing transfer of knowledge in his eyes, constantly connecting people with places with new things to learn. today, he is a “climate warrior,” but not until switzerland did he gain social and environmental consciousness. not until he left home did he realize the need to protect his “gem in the middle of the caribbean.”

“when you move people from one place to another, you’re not only moving people: you’re moving experiences, you’re moving culture,” he said. “tourism has a greater impact than we thought and than we realized, because it’s not only us moving, it’s everything that we go with, moving with us.”

amid the tattoo art swirling on his tanned skin – a papaya (his connection with femininity), a rue flower (his grandmother bathed him with it as a child), a heart containing the catalan flag (for his partner) – the bodhi hostel logo (the bodhi tree) makes an appearance on his left forearm. valiente pours himself into everything he does: bodhi was chosen by hostelworld.com as the best hostel in panama within a year of its opening.

he has etched the bodhi tree onto himself as a symbol of enlightenment and a constant reminder of his job, both at the hostel and in the world at large. he lives and works to create environmental change, and to spread the message from traveler to traveler until the world hears about guna yala’s fight for existence.

the yoga pose he struck on the beach was the warrior pose. valiente may cross cultures and defy definition, but one thing we know to be true: he is a climate change warrior.

it’s dusk on a tuesday night at kalu yala, an eco-town in the panamanian jungle. at the sound of a double-blown conch, interns, staff, and visitors, sipping cocktails out of mugs and mason jars, abruptly abandon their conversations and form a cafeteria line for the evening meal: “plasagna.”

the dish, plantain lasagna, is a delicacy in the jungle town and educational institute. it consists of layers of thinly sliced plantains, tomato sauce, vegetables and cheese, or a cheese-less option for the numerous vegans here.

but this isn’t your average cafeteria line.

kalu yala, striving to be the world’s most sustainable modern town, embraces that title in the kitchen through its farm-to-table menu and culinary program.

local

since kalu yala is not yet a fully farm-to-table operation, the focus is on eating locally. esteban gast, the director of the kalu yala institute, said more than 80 percent of their food once came from less than five miles away, encompassing the kalu yala farm and the local community in san miguel. however, executive chef brigitte desvaux said this number has likely gone down to a more realistic 30 percent as the town’s population has grown. but looking forward, plans to grow the farm include developing substitutes for commonly used products and protein sources.

“the name of the game where we are now is import substitution,” gast said. “we are a business, and in terms of both the business program and us as a business that functions. so we buy peanut butter, can we buy peanut butter here? can we make sunscreen here? can we make coconut water here? those are the questions that we are obsessed with, because that is how we become sustainable, that’s how we start businesses, and that is how we become successful.”

peanut butter is a controversial topic, desvaux said. interns can often be spotted eating peanut butter from the jar, and it makes a great snack because it’s protein-rich and it doesn’t go bad. but it comes from across the world and doesn’t quite match their standards of sustainability, she said.

“what is the purpose that we’re bringing (things like peanut butter) in: for convenience, protein, for a quick snack, for ease on the kitchen crew? so looking at those things and thinking, ‘ok, before we eliminate it, let’s find a substitute to replace it with.’”

the kitchen’s head chef, pulum, has been developing “bean butter,” a peanut butter substitute made from white beans, that desvaux said has the same flavor and protein but is produced on-site in a much more sustainable manner. on the other hand, it doesn’t contain preservatives so it must be made much more frequently. they’re looking into natural ways to preserve it, such as by adding citrus juice or freezing it, she said.

alternative

kalu yala is a place where alternative diets thrive. sarah diamond, an intern in the culinary program, said most of the foods they learn to make are vegan and gluten free. some of the meals served in the kitchen contain eggs, cheese, and occasionally meat, but there are always vegan and gluten free options served alongside them.

“we’ve done so much with alternatives,” diamond said. “i think that showing people that like, vegan for example, is just as good and often times a lot better, that’s such a great way to make a difference. eating is, when you’re talking strictly about environmental impact, that’s a humongous thing for someone to change their diet.”

the meat and eggs mostly come from the chickens that roam around the town like pets. (one intern found that a certain chicken likes to leave eggs in her bed.) last semester, interns had the opportunity to participate in a chicken slaughtering to better understand where their meat was coming from.

“i knew that i wanted to do it because i think that even if you don’t eat meat, living in a society that is so meat-heavy,” diamond said, “i just think it’s an important thing to know what it’s like to actually kill something, if you live in a world that kills animals.”

this upcoming semester, all chicken meat and hopefully eggs will come from the kalu yala farm, desvaux said. the culinary staff purchases pork and beef from two farmers in san miguel, but interns and staff also are investigating alternative animal protein sources to introduce on the farm, such as iguanas, rabbits, and tilapia. the fish hopefully will be ready to harvest by august or september, desvaux said, and likely will serve as a weekly protein to replace pork or beef.

“there’s so much deforestation happening throughout panama because of cattle, so we’re really looking into alternative protein to set that example,” she said. “the three (main) proteins are not the only ones that are available. there are other animals that we can raise humanely and sustainably and introduce into our diets. it doesn’t mean that i necessarily want to eliminate (pork or beef) fully, more so that i want to make sure we’re consuming it in an environmentally friendly way.”

integrity

another big aspect of sustainable eating is reducing waste from food. leftovers from meals often are reincorporated later and lingering food scraps are composted. culinary director karri selby said she also emphasizes using 100 percent of each ingredient to minimize waste and maintaining its integrity to pay respect to the farmer by not cooking away all of its nutrients.

while the vision of a fully farm-to-table operation is founded on sustainability, interns and staff recognize that there may need to be some exceptions.

“there are other things like coffee, and we drink a lot of coffee, that we get from boquete, which is in panama, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to grow coffee here,” a biology intern explained. “boquete is in a higher climate, it’s colder there. they can grow coffee better there, and by supporting them we are supporting a community in panama. if we tried to grow coffee here, it would be a lot of resources, a lot of our time, and not really supporting the areas around us as well. it’s a balance of doing things ourselves but also supporting the communities around us.”

even if not every ingredient comes from their farm, kalu yala’s kitchen will keep serving delicious and sustainable fuel for innovators – 300 of them this summer semester.

“i feel really lucky that i get to be the one that is in their life for such a short period of time but hopefully they walk away from this experience having a bigger appreciation and love for food and what it takes,” selby said. “yesterday that lasagna, i mean, that is a labor of love, and you have to make like eight of them because we’re feeding so many people, so when you see people that are really excited and happy, you know, just for the food, for some people that’s the highlight of their day.”

———

culinary intern liv rushin’s almond feta cheese

ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups almond meal
• 3 cloves garlic
• 3 tbs olive oil
• ½ cup water
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• ½ tsp salt

directions:

1. chop garlic into thin slices.
2. juice two lemons (or any citrus fruit; at kalu yala they used sour oranges).
3. combine all ingredients in a food processor and mix on regular power until smooth.
4. taste, add any more ingredients as you wish.
5. optional: remove cheese from food processor and wrap in cheesecloth and place in a bowl.

refrigerate, or enjoy right away. makes a delicious, creamy spread on toast and also is great on pasta!

chicago — kassie hinrichsen had no idea she would end up with a farm in a warehouse of the old stockyards district of chicago. after her graduation from the university of minnesota, the 28-year-old moved to south america to work on rural farms in ecuador and colombia.

but life took her back to her midwestern roots, and a google search for “urban farms in chicago” took her to the plant. she was hooked by the start-ups that turn waste into resources and joined the organization in 2013.

the plant, also called plant chicago, housed in a 93,000-square-foot former meat processing business, focuses on circular economies of food production. hinrichsen serves as the education and outreach manager for plant chicago, the non-profit working with developer and building owner bubbly dynamics. she works to deliver plant chicago’s message — that people should think differently about food, waste and the environment. the focus is on students on the city’s south side, where the plant is located, but the plant attracts visitors from across the city and beyond.  

seventeen food-producing businesses, from an aquaponics system to a mushroom farm to a kombucha brewery, call the plant home. the systems are interconnected: for example, spent beer grain from whiner brewery and coffee chaff from 4 letter word coffee come together to make bio-briquettes, a fuel source.

“the circular economy promotes rethinking what waste is,” hinrichsen said.

across the united states, the number of households growing their own food is on the rise. the highest increases are with millennials: 18 to 34-year-olds are the fastest growing segment of the population to start their own food gardens, according to a 2014 report from the national gardening association.

dave whitinger, the nga’s executive director, said that these young people are largely driven by the local food movement.

“they don’t really identify themselves as gardeners but they’re growing their own food,” whitinger said. “a big reason for that is that they’re not gardening for the sake of gardening; they’re gardening because of the result they get from it.”

the nga report found that one in three american households grow some portion of the food they consume. but urban areas often do not have the access to land available in the suburbs. plant chicago works to make small-scale food systems available to chicagoans, with an emphasis on its south side neighbors, through farmers markets and programmed workshops showing people how to farm in small spaces.  

the trends, already visible in american society, have a global reach.

twelve hundred miles south of miami, a group of young americans, europeans and australians joined by a few of their latin american counterparts are establishing an eco-city in the jungles of panama with farm-to-table agriculture. the village, named kalu yala, is dedicated to the pursuit of sustainable lifestyles, an endeavor propelled by the dozens of interns that dedicate ten weeks at a time to learning and doing in the valley.

kalu yala offers educational programming in everything from business to outdoor recreation to media arts. the largest program is in sustainable agriculture. jon trimarco, the director of the program, started at kalu yala over a year ago. after spending two years in ghana with the peace corps, trimarco, 29, wanted to pursue farming because it links the intersection of humanity and the natural world.  

“a lot of young americans, a lot of young europeans are kind of realizing — because, you know, from a generational aspect, we’ve been raised in the cities already and we have that excess and that privilege and we’re already immersed in that environment — we’re kind of realizing that that’s not quite enough,” trimarco said. “we want a connection with nature and to smell soil and have dirt under our fingernails and we want to work with the rhythms of the land.”

jonathan pereira, plant chicago’s executive director, also noted the trend, pointing out that every major industrial area in america has a local food movement.  

“in a lot of ways what we’re talking about is becoming more like a developing country in terms of sourcing local, using little energy, minimizing the amount of resources that go in, reusing as much as possible,” pereira said. “it’s sort of like a developed country with a lot of abundance trying to act as if there isn’t an abundance.”

trimarco directs his students to develop projects — almost like micro-level start-ups — in the area of the farm dedicated to experimental agriculture. from hydroponics to better methods of composting, trimarco’s students try out new farming techniques to ideally apply in the “real world” after they leave kalu yala. they even created walking trails with edible plants along the way.  

“ultimately, we want to be asking ourselves, ‘does this drive us toward a better symbiosis with the environment that we’re in?’” trimarco said. “does it lead to conservation in its long terms?”

whitinger thinks that after farmers markets and home gardens, the future of the local food movement is raising animals — true small-scale farming.

“anybody can grow tomatoes and anybody can grow a lettuce or a spinach or something like that,” whitinger said. “that’s really the next step, to get more into being more self-sufficient: raising your own animals… a lot of cities are changing their ordinances to allow people to keep hens in their backyard. that’s where a lot of the excitement is heading right now.”

but while permaculture — agriculture systems designed to mirror sustainable natural systems — is great for individual homes or small communities, it cannot scale up to address the problems of the world’s demand for food, trimarco said.

“how do we take these really cool, fun, often quirky food-producing systems, like aquaponics, how do we make that stuff actually work on a global scale?” trimarco said. “right now, we’re in a situation where, globally, we have the vast majority of food that’s produced, especially in places like the u.s., in ways that are not really sustainable, especially in terms of soil health or in terms of environmental degradation or even just in terms of promoting human health.”

that reality is especially true when it comes to the world’s cities, according to pereira. pereira said that efforts to utilize local farms and avoid waste, particularly in the united states, move cities in the right direction.   

“you have to account for the importing of big grain products — corn, wheat, soy, things like that — into cities to be able to exist,” pereira said. “(but) the local/regional food movement happening in a lot of cities driven by high-end chefs, in particular, is exciting… you can pick pretty much any major city and there’s probably a culinary movement there to source local.”

willie dale is a 27-year-old distiller who spends his days in kalu yala, panama. dale has begun to explore new ways of distilling in which the process’ impact on the environment is either positive or neutral. his motivation, creativity, and love of his work, creates an optimism that he will eventually be able to scale up his distillery and distribute throughout panama.  

this podcast explores willie’s process and history in more depth:

(photo by emma sarappo)

here, willie explains the basic distilling process: