Swamp Stomp
Volume 18, Issue 24
In June of 2013, the Nicaraguan National Assembly approved of the construction of a canal to be built through Nicaragua by the Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Group. The canal is expected to cost around $40 billion, provide Nicaragua with 250,000 jobs and significantly increase the national GDP. On the surface, one can understand why the government of the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, with nearly 45% of its citizens below the poverty line, may find this deal attractive. However, the canal’s construction, which has already been postponed twice, has raised concerns by conservation scientists, environmental activists, and indigenous Nicaraguans about the environmental and social impacts the canal may have on the country.
The 173-mile long canal is currently projected to bisect Nicaragua starting from the mouth of the Brito river on the Pacific coast, where it will cut through to lake Cocibolca and on eastward through the Tule and Punta Gorda rivers to the Caribbean sea. Lake Cocibolca is Central America’s largest freshwater lake and is not only Nicaragua’s primary source of fresh water, but is also home to a variety of endemic fish species as well as thousands of indigenous families who fish the lake for subsistence. Conservationists fear that the introduction of saltwater from the ocean entering the lake via the canal could disrupt the lake’s ecosystem, threatening not only its biodiversity but also the livelihoods of thousands of people. There is the additional possibility of invasive ocean species being inadvertently transported into the lake from ships passing through and wreaking havoc on endemic populations.
The canal would also cut through the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, a reserve stretching from southern Mexico to Panama that allows endangered mammals, such as jaguars, to migrate from north to south across their native habitat. Experts at Panthera, a group of scientists dedicated to the protection of large cats, warn that such a disruption could do significant harm to the already small jaguar population (500 individuals) in Nicaragua. Perhaps the most troubling consequence of the canal would be the displacement of some 120,000 farmers and members of the indigenous Rama, Ulwa, Garifuna, and Miskitu communities that live along the canal’s proposed route. This displacement would not only unjustly confiscate land from indigenous groups that have been marginalized since Spanish colonial times, but would also threaten their unique languages and cultures, representing a net loss of human cultural diversity.
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