Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Puerto Lempira lies on the shore of the sweetwater Laguna Caratasca, just west of the Caribbean in La Moskitia, Honduras. The largest Miskitu town in the region, with an ailing lobster industry in an atmosphere of post-coup insecurity and governmental corruption, many turn to drug trafficking for income.
On a recent trip to the Kruta River near Cape Gracias a Dios on the Honduran Caribbean and the Nicaraguan Border, life without roads and little electricity proceeds slowly, detached from the world at large. Yet, drug trafficking is changing the economy and the culture of the Miskitu People, and due to overfishing, local people can only turn to harvesting jellyfish for China as an honest source of revenue.
On a 2013 trip to the Kruta River near Cape Gracias a Dios on the Honduran Caribbean and the Nicaraguan Border, life without roads and little electricity proceeds slowly, detached from the world at large. As sea levels rise, already economically-marginalized coastal villages in the mangrove swamps are slowly being inundated by the rising tides.
A story from the Miskitu People (Miskito) of Caribbean Nicaragua, about a man who follows his beloved wife into the afterlife.
Honduras grants Miskitu People title to huge swath of coastal, border lands they occupy, but massive dams under construction on the Patuca River and pilfering of the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve continue unabated in a region undergoing massive militarization.
Free marketeers and Libertarians advocate for the world’s first Charter City, with authoritarian governance, facilitated by a military coup, coordinated using political sway with business partners, using public funds from the IDB for infrastructure plans, and built on land “purchased” from indigenous communities, small farmers and the state of Honduras.
Deforestation, the proposed damming of pristine rivers for hydroelectricity, and destruction of indigenous communities threatens the wildest and most biodiverse corner of tropical Central America: The Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve