Panama, 9 December 2025. - The UNESCO entered on Tuesday the construction techniques of the quincha houses of Panama on its list of emergency safeguard. The decision is based on recognition of the value of this ancestral architecture but warns about its imminent disappearance due to a shortage of raw materials.

That's the first time that Panama has entered an element in the risk category, an attempt to activate funds and technical advice to rescue this vernacular architecture threatened by industrialization and demographic changes.

The international body validated the Panamanian file, which warns about the "critical viability" of this technique. According to the document evaluated, the tradition faces a storm made up of a shortage of natural raw materials due to climate change and the use of soils for intensive livestock production and the loss of oral transmission between generations.

"That's our first demonstration put into urgent safeguard, and that means a triple effort," said Emma Gómez, Panama's representative at the plenary at the twentieth meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage at the UNESCO held in New Delhi.

With this inscription the UNESCO protects the social fabric that makes it possible: the "unta de enbarra." Traditionally, these houses are built with money but with solidarity. The community meets at a public day to step on the mud and to put up the walls collectively, under a system of reciprocity where today we help our neighbor to get help tomorrow.

With its entry into the list of emergency safeguards, Panama undertakes to implement a four-year plan focused on the provinces of Los Santos, Herrera, Veraguas and Coclé. The project includes the creation of seedling seedlings necessary for the structure, inventories of living carrier and educational programs to re-evaluate the technique to youth.