Indian homeland in Nicaragua threatened
By Darwin Juarez
A 720,000 hectare forest reserve in north-eastern Nicaragua, home to 95% of Central America's Sumu Indians, is under attack by a Canadian mining company, Nicaraguan loggers and subsistence farmers.
The reserve is called Bosawas. Its northern boundary lies on the frontier of Honduras, where it connects with the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve. This verdant jungle corridor is one of the most biologically important expanses of tropical forests in Central America.
Nicaragua's minister of economy recently granted a permit to the Nycon Resource Company, based in Canada, to search for gold and other minerals in the reserve. Jaime Incer, who heads Nicaragua's Environment and Natural Resources Agency (MARENA), sent a strongly worded letter of protest to the ministry, but has not received an answer.
According to Nelson Lopez, director of MARENA's Bosawas Project, mining could harm the health of the Sumu and "is a violation of the 1991 law establishing the reserve, which prohibits any activity that might cause ecological damage".
A MARENA study counted about 700 non-indigenous families living on the borders of Bosawas. Most have arrived since the election of President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in 1990.
The new arrivals have cleared thousands of acres of forest in order to plant crops and graze cattle. They have opened up crude roads, making it easier for loggers to haul the huge and valuable trunks of tropical hardwoods to Managua. Last year, over-flights of the region revealed large areas shorn of trees on the reserve's western and southern boundaries.
The Sumu have informed the government that they are unlikely to sit back and allow Nycon to invade the reserve. In a May 29 letter, Sumu leaders demand "cancellation of the concession, otherwise we will resolve this in our own manner".
[From Tropical Conservation Newsbureau.]