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NICARAGUA: Can Army Protect
Plundered Forest Reserves?
By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA (IPS) - The Nicaraguan state has embarked on an
iron-fisted policy, including the use of military force,
to clamp down on those responsible for environmental
depredation, after repeated denunciations by
organisations and government officials that the
country's two largest biosphere reserves are being
plundered.
Special environmental prosecutor José Luis García told
IPS that his office has received instructions from the
presidency to enforce laws against environmental crimes
immediately and "with full rigour."
"It's a specific directive" from the Attorney-General's
Office and the presidency "to bring criminal,
administrative and civil action suits against all those
accused of destroying and threatening the environment,"
he said.
In December, members of the indigenous Mayangna people
came all the way to Managua to complain to the national
government that their territory in the Bosawás biosphere
reserve, in the northeast of the country, was being
invaded by thousands of settlers from the central and
Pacific coast regions.
"The invaders are destroying the ecosystem!" protested
the concerned Mayangna delegates. Their reserve is home
to 50,000 indigenous Mayangna people and 100,000 Miskito
(the most numerous indigenous group in the country), as
well as another 100,000 mestizos (mixed Spanish and
indigenous ancestry) and non-indigenous settlers,
according to official figures.
In early January, a commission of legislators and
environmental organisations visited the area to verify
the reports about destruction of land in indigenous
territories in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN).
During their tour, the lawmakers confirmed that the
country's main natural reserve, one of the largest in
Central America, has lost close to 60 percent of its
forest cover due to invasions by small farmers and
organised groups trafficking illegally in lumber and
land.
Independent environmentalist Kamilo Lara, a champion of
the Mayangna cause, told IPS that depredation of the
environment by small farmers and land speculators has
not only severely damaged the reserve's buffer zone, but
has also deforested large areas of formerly pristine
wilderness in the protected core.
"They have destroyed, and continue to destroy, the main
water and forest reserves in the country. At this rate,
deforestation will wipe out the reserve in 10 years,"
Lara told IPS.
According to his calculations, approximately 11,000
square kilometres out of the 20,000 square kilometres
set aside as the original reserve have been damaged
through expansion of the buffer zone, which was
originally less than 5,500 square kilometres in area.
In 1997 Bosawás was designated a Biosphere Reserve and
World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
Located along the border with Honduras, Bosawás covers
14 percent of Nicaragua's territory. One of the largest
forested areas of Central America and the second largest
in Latin America after the Amazon rainforest, it is rich
in biodiversity, with moist tropical forests and a
number of crystal-clear rivers.
The other major protected forest reserve in Nicaragua,
which is also at risk, is the Indio Maíz Biological
Reserve in the southeast of the country, bordering the
San Juan river on the frontier with Costa Rica. It
covers 3,180 square kilometres and is part of the Rama
indigenous people's territory.
Prosecutor García said land invaders who had settled in
the core of the Bosawás forest reserve had been evicted
with the help of police and the army, and those who
organised the occupation and sold the land are being
prosecuted in the courts.
The Autonomy Law for the eastern Atlantic regions of
Nicaragua stipulates that indigenous territories can
only be occupied and used productively by members of
native communities, and cannot be sold, traded,
transferred or used productively by anyone else.
When the parliamentary commission visited Bosawás they
found that in 2009, more than 3,000 small farmers had
taken over some 50,000 hectares of the indigenous
community's land in the protected core of the reserve,
to cut down and sell the valuable timber, grow crops and
later sell the appropriated land to cattle ranchers from
rural areas.
So far, 27 people have been arrested and accused of
organising the invasion of Bosawás and damaging the
environment.
In light of these events, President Daniel Ortega
proposed that the Nicaraguan army create a specialist
unit on environmental crimes to guard 70 reserves and
protected natural areas in the country.
Army spokesman General Adolfo Zepeda told IPS that the
armed forces were making the president's proposal a
priority, and are currently organising what will be
named the Ecological Battalion.
But they are encountering difficulty because of the lack
of resources for transporting the specialist unit
between the country's reserves.
"The army has made the environment its priority and we
are considering alternative options on how to make the
unit operational," Zepeda told IPS.
But the prospect of the military being involved in
protecting natural resources has given rise to suspicion
and distrust among civil society organisations and
indigenous leaders.
Brooklyn Rivera, a member of parliament and leader of
the RAAN, accused the army of complicity with
environmental destruction because it tolerates lumber
trafficking and protects the powerful cattle ranchers
involved in the land scam.
"The lumber mafias and the settlers who invade
indigenous lands in the North Caribbean operate in
collusion with state institutions like the National
Forestry Institute (INAFOR), which issues permits to
fell timber in the Bosawás reserve, and the army
checkpoint guards who look the other way when the trucks
go through," Rivera complained.
The lawmaker directly accused the army of taking bribes
to allow illegal lumber extraction.
"At night and at dawn the trucks loaded with lumber come
and go. They just pay at the army checkpoints and go
through without any trouble," Rivera claimed.
Army chief General Omar Hallesleven denied the
allegations and called for proof to be presented in
court to back up the charges.
Hallesleven told IPS the armed forces actively cooperate
in a coordinated fashion with the Attorney-General's
Office, the Environment Ministry and INAFOR to safeguard
Nicaragua's natural resources.
The head of the non-governmental Environmental Policy
Initiatives Centre (CIPA), Cirilo Otero, was sceptical
about the idea of forming a specialist military unit to
solve a serious environmental problem.
"Environmental problems are never solved by the
intimidating force of a rifle. The problem requires
political will and a great deal of education, not rifles
or boots," he said.
According to Otero, CIPA has been denouncing the
depredation of Bosawás for more than 10 years, and the
state has never taken real measures to solve it.
"Arms and the use of force must be reserved for other
things. To prevent environmental destruction, strong
institutions are needed, together with state resources
to give small farmers alternative life choices, and real
and concrete environmental policies," he said.
According to the sociologist, the destruction of the
reserves is closely linked to the country's widespread
poverty.
"A small farmer who is landless and hungry goes into the
forest, cuts down trees, kills a deer, slashes and burns
a field and sows his crop. What is to be done? This
person must be given a different way to survive, rather
than being threatened with a rifle," he said.
Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin
America, after Haiti. More than 47 percent of its
population is living below the poverty line, on incomes
of under two dollars a day, according to the United
Nations.
In the view of Javier Meléndez, a sociologist and
analyst at the non-governmental Institute for Public
Policy Studies and Strategies, the use of military force
to curb environmental destruction is only justified if
it is accompanied by environmental policies implemented
by civilian institutions.
"The army can escort the authorities, patrol the
reserves and be at hand to help state institutions when
called upon. But they must not be the final arbiters of
justice in the mountains. That would be dangerous," he
said.
President Ortega's adviser on environmental affairs,
Jaime Incer Barquero, said that above and beyond the
controversy over using the armed forces to curtail
environmental degradation, what is needed immediately is
protection for the threatened reserves.
"The most dangerous thing that could happen to the
country is that, if we do not demonstrate that we are
capable of protecting the Bosawás reserve, it might lose
its status as a Biosphere Reserve, and we would be
labelled as a country that plunders its environment," he
told IPS. |
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