The population of a small Panamanian island is being relocated to the mainland due to rising ocean levels blamed on climate change.

About 300 families are in the process of moving from Gardi Sugdub.

There are about 38,000 people in 62 other communities along Panama's Caribbean and Pacific coasts that may need to be moved due to rising oceans in the coming years.

"The islands on average are only a half-meter above sea level, and as that level rises, sooner or later the Gunas are going to have to abandon all of the islands almost surely by the end of the century or earlier," Steven Paton, director of the Smithsonian Institution's physical monitoring program in Panama told the Associated Press.

The government has built a $12 million new community of homes for them. Each family will get a two-bedroom house, drinking water and electricity, according to the Telegraph. They previously had to have water delivered from the mainland.

"We're a little sad, because we're going to leave behind the homes we've known all our lives, the relationship with the sea, where we fish, where we bathe and where the tourists come, but the sea is sinking the island little by little," Nadín Morales, 24, told the Associated Press.

The relocated citizens will have to adapt from living on the sea to living in a forest.

Some residents have opted to stay until they will be forced to move by flooding waters.

A recent study estimated that  Panama would lose about 2% of its coastal territory by 2050.