Thank
you for the opportunity to make comments to CAFTA Interim Environmental
Review. Below you will find a brief description of what I do here
in Nicaragua and the negative effects that the increase in trade
will have on US investors in Nicaragua.
I
am a U.S. citizen, passport # Z7828946 and was born on 01-31-60
, in Esteli, Nicaragua. My challenge concerns a business investment
that I entered into based on certain laws and incentives offered
by the Government of Nicaragua and which is now threatened by the
same government. I am a businessman with interests in Nicaragua
and Costa Rica. My business offers University level courses to U.S
based students through a program run by Dr. Paul Garber of the University
of Illinois. Students travel to Central America and stay at either
of two family-owned eco-tourism resorts, the Ometepe Biological
Field Station in San Ramon, on the Island of Ometepe, Nicaragua,
and La Suerte Biological Field Station in Costa Rica's tropical
rainforest region. I also operate a combination hostel and bed-and-breakfast
in Merida, on the island of Ometepe, Lake Nicaragua. The courses
offered by the educational end of my business are designed to take
full advantage of our setting and use nature as a classroom. I am
a nature enthusiast and invested my life savings in Nicaragua because
of its beautiful environment and my desire to help rebuild the country
after years of strife. The Government of Nicaragua actively encourages
investment, particularly U.S. investment, through an investment
law that offers attractive investment incentives, especially in
the tourism sector (see "La Ley de Incentivos Turisticos"
and "El Plan Nacional de Desarollo Turistico de la Republica
de Nicaragua"). Tourism is heavily promoted as an excellent
investment opportunity largely because of the country's unspoiled,
natural beauty. The "Mark Twain Route," (Rio San Juan/Granada/Ometepe/San
Juan del Sur), is the investment location most strongly encouraged.(The
National Tourism Development Plan identified Ometepe as a "Destino
Turistico de Primer Orden" or a Tourist Destination of the
first order). It is along the Mark Twain route that I invested.
My business is centered on the southwest coast of the island and
our instructors and scientific researchers make heavy use of the
island waters, bird, monkey and reptilian habitat, as well as the
flora, to teach their classes and complete important research. Physical
activities are also encouraged, primarily swimming, kayaking, hiking
and mountain biking. In addition to this, we are involved in a very
important long-term scientific research and educational program
to restore and protect the unique
migration of the bull shark into Lake Nicaragua from the Caribbean
Sea through the San Juan River. This amazing biological phenomenon
occurs only in this part of the world, which has been endorsed by
the Central American governments, the United Nations Environment
Program (UNEP), the Organization of American Sates (OAS), Mote Marine
Laboratory, University of Wisconsin, and National Geographic Society,
among the educational and research institutions in the U.S.
Given
this background, I was shocked and dismayed to learn that Nicanor
SA, (a firm of which Patrick Bolanos, nephew of Nicaragua's president,
Enrique Bolanos, is the general manager), open a tilapia farm and
processing plant on the shores of San Ramon, Ometepe. Tilapia is
an omnivore that threatens to destroy the natural fish of the lake
and the Rio San Juan, which feeds into it (thereby also threatening
the island's fishing industry and established touristic activities.
Moreover, because of the industrial wastes the project will generate,
farming tilapia will contaminate our beaches and water, and promote
the growth of bacteria, thus posing a health threat to visitors
and residents alike. The initial stages of the Tilapia project is
generating about 40 tons daily of fish excrement, urine and artificial
food waste. With the possibility of an increasing demand for fresh
water fishes in the US, companies will move into Lake Nicaragua
in order to compete with NICANOR. The threat of Fresh water pollution
will augment immensely with CAFTA due to the trade advantages aqua
culture fish like Tilapia will have in the future. In addition to
the environmental impact, such development is gradually destroying
the very value of the investment the Government of Nicaragua promotes
and on which I relied. I, together with other concerned residents,
scientists and environmentalists, began organizing efforts to dissuade
the Government of Nicaragua from approving the project. Despite
our strenuous efforts and scientific facts supporting our position,
MARENA, Nicaragua's environmental protection agency, approved the
project just a few weeks after president Bolanos took office. By
February of 2003 all the cages where in place in the lake shore
and full production started.
In order to illustrate better the gravity of the situation, please
find next a few documents written on 25th October 2001 by Salvador
Montenegro Guillen, director and founder of Hydro Resource Research
Center of Nicaragua at National University of Nicaragua (CIRA/UNAN)
and directed to the ministries of MIFIC, MARENA, INAA and INTUR
:
The
following is the pollution currently being generated by only one
aqua culture farm in our lake waters.
“It
is evident that these fish are wonderful as breeding fish. They
grow fast, they waste little food, they are full of energy, they
do not require much attention, they are highly accepted, and enterprises
throughout the world are interested in improving the prices, which
are now the same as those of trout. These are positive aspects of
this kind of industry. Notwithstanding all the enthusiasm, the breeding
of aggressive species such as tilapia is not allowed in cages in
natural waters in civilized countries because the risk of harm is
big and unpredictable.”
“The
cages were designed to be used in artificial ponds or in manmade
lakes, not in natural water. Tilapias are similar to rats in their
ability to adapt, resist, and take advantage of whatever they find
to feed on. That is why they are so dangerous to the balance of
natural ecosystems. The tragedy caused by rats in the country is
equivalent to what tilapias do to natural water.”
“It
is not altogether true that tilapias are not dangerous because they
“are herbivorous”. Tilapias are omnivorous. They are
eager bottom feeders when they are adults, and they consume insect
larvae, benthic organisms, and any other thing that fits into their
mouth.”
“The
island of Ometepe offers great potential to the development of ecotourism.
So, in addition to the ecological inconveniences exposed, the artificial
breeding of tilapia transgresses the declaration of the island (Law
No. 302) as Natural Reservation and Cultural Patrimony of the Nation.
This includes adjacent places, coastal areas and islands. It also
contradicts Article 8 of the same law, which clearly “forbids
any activity that can destroy or threaten to destroy the natural
and cultural resources of the island”.”
“Even
if the system to keep the fish in the cages is absolutely safe (which
is unlikely) and there is never an escape of adult fish or a risk
of multiplication from their eggs due to their limited reproductive
habits in the cages, there is a serious and extremely harming impact,
resulting from THREE THOUSAND TO FIVE THOUSAND METRIC TONS of live
fish crowded in a space of 21,000 m3 (the size of a cage). This
amount of fish constantly produces wastes equivalent to the raw
sewage of a growing population. (Those five million kilograms are
equivalent to 125,000 pigs forty kilograms each, in the same place,
at the same time).”
“Authorizing
this project would be equivalent to installing a chicken pen with
five million kilograms of live chickens (about three million seven
hundred thousand birds) in cages suspended in the water, whose raw
wastes would fall directly into the water for the current to disperse
. In other words, the waste elimination system of this gigantic
project is the water of Lake Cocibolca, the same water the Government
of Nicaragua has declared to be used for drinking and for ecotourism.”
“The
design of floating cages to be used in natural water is unacceptable
because the animals are directly in contact with the natural water,
and there is no way of purifying it after it is polluted. They are
not isolated ponds in which systems of mitigation and purification
can be installed. This is the water of Lake Cocibolca we are talking
about, the most important natural resource in the country.”
“There
is nowhere in the world, and there could never be, a residual water
treatment system for this kind of intensive culture, …”
In the face of facts that argue against it, I, and others like me,
are convinced that this "victory'' was achieved through the
use of influence peddling by Patrick Bolanos (and of which his uncle,
President Enrique Bolanos, probably has full knowledge). Can it
be a coincidence that Nicanor obtained an environmental impact statement
favoring its project from the
consulting firm Audubon (no ties to the prestigious Audubon society)
, a company whose candidacy to serve as co-manager of the MaderasVolcano
Natural Reserve? We think not. Audubon will manage the area in which
the proposed tilapia fish farming plant is located, as Nicanor strongly
backed. With Audubon as co-manager of the Reserve, Nicanor would
have the control of the area, avoiding all the opposition already
generated.
This
type of backroom manipulation runs directly contrary to the policy
clearly enunciated by President Bolanos: a policy that supports
good administrative practices and transparency in the study and
management of natural resources, as well as the bi-national integrated
management and sustainable development initiative for the Lake Nicaragua
and San Juan River Basin. Transparency is also a policy strongly
supported by the U.S. Government. Backroom manipulation, lack of
transparency and influence peddling clearly act to economic detriment
of U.S. investors drawn to Nicaragua by the government's promises
and inducements.
Other
present and potential U.S. investors also require your protection.
Everything possible should be done to make the Government of Nicaragua
honor its promises and commitments, and to protect future investors.
In
Ometepe and Lake Nicaragua a visitor sees paradise in nature. It
is a paradise that may soon be lost.
Please help
us conserve it.
Best Regards
Alvaro Molina
Ometepe Biological Field Station
Maderas Volcano,
Ometepe Island, Lake Nicaragua
Tel. 505-453-0875, Managua office 277-1130, 270-1176
Email merida@ibw.com.ni
La Suerte Biological Field Station
Cariari, Pococi, Limon, Costa Rica
Tel 506-710-8005 email ometepe@racsa.co.cr
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