The Naso Indigenous People of Panama

EDLC was asked by the Alianza para la Conservacion y el Desarrollo (Alliance for Conservation and Development, or ACD) to enlist a U.S. law firm to defend the land and way of life of the Naso indigenous people of Panama. The law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld (Akin Gump) has taken on that challenge, assembling a team of two dozen lawyers to work on behalf of the Naso.

The Naso

The roughly 3,500 Naso indigenous people live primarily as subsistence farmers in eleven communities along the Teribe river in a remote and mountainous jungle region of extraordinary ecological biodiversity in Panama. The Naso name for the Teribe river comes from the mythical "Grand-Mother," the guiding spirit of the Naso ancestors. The Naso are ruled by the only remaining monarch in the western hemisphere, who serves as an elected king from a royal family.

The Naso live alongside La Amistad Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that stretches across Panama and Costa Rica from the coral reefs of the Caribbean to the peaks of the Talamanca mountain range. Cloud forests, mangroves and high elevation paramos are all found in the park, along with an abundance of animal life that includes jaguars, howler monkeys, tapirs, anteaters, sloths, and armadillos. More than 300 species of birds and 100 species of fish are found in the area.

The Naso's entitlement to their traditional lands

The Naso's long-standing land claims arise against the backdrop of the Panamanian government's erratic history in recognizing and titling indigenous lands. Unlike the vast majority of countries in Latin America, the government of Panama has never created a legal mechanism for indigenous peoples to obtain title to their land.

Instead, the government has sporadically passed laws creating comarcas (reservations) that recognize to some extent the land claims of some of the country's indigenous peoples. But the lands of many indigenous peoples in Panama- most notably the Naso- are not covered by these laws. A new collective land law might lead to recognition of Naso land claims, but could drastically limit the Naso's authority over their own lands.

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Naso of Panama

The close ties of indigenous people with the land must be understood as the fundamental basis of their cultures, their spiritual life, their integrity, and their economic survival.

- Judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2001 in the Case of the Mayagna (Sumo)Awas Tingni Community v. Nicaragua.