Details about the Course

For the past two years, the University of Miami (UM) has offered a course about Bocas del Toro called “Tourism: Conservation and Development”, created by Daniel Suman, Professor of Coastal Management and Environmental Law at that university.  The students participating in this course met once every week for three hours to discuss articles about the history and social and environmental realities of Bocas del Toro.  The highlight of the course was a 10 day trip to Bocas del Toro between March 13 - 22.  Upon their return to UM, students prepared reports about their research and presented results to the class.

This year, 21 UM graduate and undergraduate students participated in the course.  The course has attracted students largely from three departments: Marine Affairs and Policy, Latin American Studies, and Communications.

Why Bocas del Toro?

For the past five years, Suman has carried out projects in Bocas del Toro for the Program of Sustainable Development – Bocas del Toro, the Panamanian Maritime Authority (AMP), and the Aquatic Resources Authority of Panama (ARAP).  Most recently, he led the development of a Coastal Resources Management Plan for the Bocas del Toro Region.  This connection has facilitated the selection of Bocas del Toro as a case study for the UM course.

The Bocas del Toro Archipelago is an area of great beauty and natural and cultural diversity.  Its marine ecosystems form a mosaic of connected habitats that provide important environmental services, as well as great scenic beauty.  Bocas del Toro houses the second largest area of coral reefs in Panama and is an important center of coral diversity.   Bocas also plays a globally important role in the life histories of four species of sea turtles.  Two of these species – the Hawksbill and Leatherback sea turtles – that are both “critically endangered” according to the IUCN (World Conservation Union) – nest on Bocas beaches.  The beaches on the north coast (open ocean coast) of the islands in the archipelago (Isla Colón, Isla Bastimentos) are among the most beautiful in the world – precisely because of their undeveloped nature.

Bocas del Toro also offers great cultural diversity.  The majority of the population is indigenous (Ngöbe, Naso/Teribe), but important Afro-Antillian cultural groups also call Bocas del Toro their home.  Additionally, people from all over Panama and the entire world have emigrated to Bocas del Toro.  The unique mixture of cultural groups, their relationships between each other and with the natural environment offer many opportunities for observers – such as students of culture and environmental science and policy.

Additionally, Bocas del Toro is an area where tourism has taken off during the past 10 years.  For example, there were 3 hotels in Isla Colón 15 years ago, while today there are over 60 hotels and guesthouses.  The Panamanian Tourism Authority (ATP) estimates that about 7,000 people visited Bocas del Toro in 1998, while the number of visitors increased to 41,000 in 2008.  During this same period a significant number of foreign residents have settled in Bocas del Toro attracted by its beauty and economic opportunities.  While tourism has increased rapidly in Bocas del Toro, the region´s infrastructure (drinking water and wastewater treatment systems, transportation system, solid waste management) has developed at a considerably slower pace.  In these aspects, Bocas is a laboratory to study the relationships between tourism, development, and the environment.

Activities of the Students

During their stay in Bocas del Toro, the UM students attended talks and discussions led by a number of experts on the region´s environmental and social issues.  The lecturers included Juan Maté (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and coral reef expert), Cristina Ordoñez (coordinator of the sea turtle project of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation), Ana Spalding (doctoral students at the University of California, Santa Cruz who is studying the impacts of the new expatriates in Bocas), Iker Lasa (The Nature Conservancy and long-time Bocas environmental activist), Osvaldo Jordán and Feliciano Santos (Alliance for Conservation and Development/ACD and experts on land tenure conflicts that the Ngöbe people are facing).  Additionally, the UM students were active participants in Solimar´s workshop on best management practices for geo-tourism.

The UM group also traveled to numerous sites of interest in the area, such as Bastimentos Island Marine National Park (Cayo Zapatilla), Dolphin Bay, and the Ngöbe communities of Salt Creek, Bahía Honda, and Cristóbal.

Student Projects

Since early January 2009, the UM students began to prepare their individual projects.  During their stay in Bocas del Toro, they were able to conduct the interviews, observations, and surveys necessary for the development of their projects.  The projects included the following:

•    Analysis of the conflicts surrounding the “Harbors of the Americas” proposal to develop a mega-marina in Saigon Bay, Isla Colón
•    Wastewater management in Isla Colón
•    Threats faced by the principal surfing beaches in Bocas del Toro
•    Evaluation of the environmental information that the 5 dive operators in Bocas del Toro offer to their clients
•    Land conflicts in the archipelago between long-term residents with “Rights of Possession” and new investors and land speculators
•    Impact of the global recession on the Bocas real estate market
•    Participation of Panamanians in the tourist industry in Bocas del Toro
•    Coastline alteration on Isla Carenero
•    Origen of seafood served by restaurants in Isla Colón
•    Reflections by local Ngöbe communities on the construction of the hydroelectric dam Chan-75
•    The handicraft industry in Bocas and the low representation of Ngöbe crafts in offerings to tourists


Although their time in Bocas del Toro was short, UM students learned much from their experiences and also produced several products that might be of interest to other students of Bocas del Toro.  These products included individual projects reports and presentations, several videos on the environmental impacts of tourism in Bocas del Toro, and a collection of executive summaries of individual student projects.  One student was awarded a fellowship to return to Bocas del Toro and work with the ACD in organizing Ngöbe communities threatened by hydroelectric dam construction.  Another student has returned to Panama to conduct her master´s thesis research on Panama´s protected areas.