Twenty years ago, Chris Newberry arrived on a remote peninsula in Bocas del Toro, Panama, and purchased twenty eight acres at its farthest point. What began as a personal retreat became a lifelong relationship: a close friendship with the island's shaman, and an introduction to the Ngäbe Buglé elders and community who call this coastline home.

That relationship shaped everything that followed. Chris recognized that the tribe's traditional way of life, built for generations on abundant land and resources, was under real pressure from population growth and shrinking territory. He set out to build something that could create lasting opportunity for the community around him: employment, food production, cultural exchange, and a model of development that strengthens rather than displaces.

A Sanctuary Beneath the Home

When Chris built his home over the water, he declared the waters beneath and around it a private marine preserve — no fishing, no anchors, no extraction of any kind. Fish finally had a safe place to reproduce, and the reef responded: dense schools of fish returned, and local fishermen now catch more than they did before the preserve existed.

That home is the template for every overwater home that follows. Each additional overwater home at Tai Nuare will be built the same way — carrying its own marine preserve in the waters beneath and around it — so that every home added to the peninsula extends the sanctuary rather than diminishes it.