Because the Caribbean coast of Mesoamerica is still draped with sizeable pieces of rainforest, conservationists envision a broad corridor of living green that would extend from Mexico to Panama. Connecting the wildlands in the isthmus would allow wildlife - especially mammals like jaguars and monkeys that need room to roam - to migrate freely and safely. A recent $7.1 million grant to the government of Nicaragua from the World Bank is the first step toward safeguarding what's called the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.
The seven countries of Central America made the corridor a conservation priority during the 1994 Presidential Summit of the Americas in Miami. Nicaragua's link in the greenway covers 10.7 million acres (4.3 million hectares), from the Honduran border south to the San Juan River, which marks the boundary with Costa Rica. It comprises several parks, such as the northern Bosawas Reserve, a coastal refuge called the Miskito Cays Protected Area, and the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve in the southeast.
"By signing this agreement," says Garcia Cantarero of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA), "Nicaragua commits to protect, monitor, plan, and develop the region and undertake an information campaign on the local, regional, and international level to respect the corridor and its priority areas." Nicaragua has also received a $30 million loan from the World Bank for "institutional strengthening of MARENA, to initiate work that will support the corridor, and for development in rural communities," he adds.
Olga Corrales, environmental specialist at the World Bank's regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean, explains that the objective of the initiatives along Nicaragua's Caribbean coast is to protect the integrity of the biological corridor through conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. "Achieving this will involve financing communication and education activities, planning and monitoring, key investments in priority areas with high biodiversity, and investments that will support indigenous communities," she notes.
Nicaragua's Caribbean coast is also the site of a controversy over a forestry concession the government granted in 1996 to a South Korean company called Sol del Caribe. The company plans to log 153,000 acres (62,000 hectares) in the zone and to manufacture plywood for export.
Pedro Felix Obregon, director of Jovenes Ambientalistas, a local conservation group, points out that Sol de Caribe's logging "will cause a great amount damage, because it is located between the Bosawas Reserve and the Miskito Cays, and so will leave a big hole in the middle of the corridor." He also complains that MARENA granted the concession "without even going to see what they were authorizing or consulting with the local communities about its impact."
CONTACTS: Garcia Cantarero, Apdo. 5123, Managua, Nicaragua, tel
505/263-2835,
This article is provided from the Rainforest Alliance's Conservation Media Center,
based in San Jose,Costa Rica. For more information, contact Diane Jukofsky or Chris Wille,
Rainforest Alliance, Apdo. 138-2150, Moravia, San Jose, Costa Rica; Phone: 506-240-9383;
Fax: 506-240-2543; Email: infotrop@sol.racsa.co.cr
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