Arang Dak: remote Mayangna village at front of wave of colono land theft

Expanded version of 29.03.2023 article in The Havana Times

Settler invasion reaches core of Central American rainforest: Mayanga seek to protect land, avert violence

• Semi-autonomous Mayangna territories in the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve of northern Nicaragua, are experiencing a crisis of illegal settler land theft
• In the last 10 years, over 80 indigenous people have been killed in these land conflicts.
• Land invasion has now reached the isolated core of Bosawás, the Lakus River watershed
• Multiple settler attacks near the Lakus in February/March 2023, at least 6 dead.

The Bosawás Biosphere Reserve on the Coco River in northern Nicaragua was created to protect the heart of the largest contiguous tropical rainforest in Central America. Its core conservation zone overlaps several semi-autonomous indigenous territories, belonging to Miskito and Mayangna peoples. Both the rainforests and indigenous communities span the Nicaragua/Honduras border, forming a zone of strong concern to conservationists. 

The Mayangna village of Arang Dak, with about 300 residents, is in the Kipla Sait Tasbaika indigenous territory, the most remote and, until recently, the most successfully preserved of these Bosawás indigenous territories. It straddles a tributary of the Coco, the Lakus River. To get to Arang Dak from the nearest road takes 2 days journey in a boat. Villagers subsist on small-scale agriculture, primarily rice, beans, yucca, and plantains, grown on their fincas: forest gardens that rotate into and out of use. They supplement this with fishing, hunting, and some livestock. Satellite maps up until 2017 show the Lakus watershed sitting in the center of an enormous, remarkably untouched area of tropical rainforest. This has been changing rapidly in the last 4 years, as the Mayangna of Arang Dak face an accelerating invasion of mestizo colonos, occupying territory that had been set aside by the Nicaraguan government as conservation reserve. The Mayangna have already lost half of the 800 sq km watershed and now simply hope to stem the tide and hold onto what remains. They also fear the coming of the murders and kidnappings that have hit other parts of Bosawás.  This fear is amplified with two attacks in February and March of this year near the Lakus watershed, killing 5 Mayangna and a Nicaraguan police officer.

History of the indigenous territories and biosphere reserve

In the national conflicts of the late 1970s, the Mayangna and other indigenous groups were violently displaced from northern Nicaragua, many fleeing into Honduras or joining the Contra rebels. In the 80s, indigenous fighters agreed to lay down their weapons in exchange for officially recognized territories and semi-autonomous governance. These indigenous territories are held collectively by the Miskito and Mayangna who live in them, rather than titled to individuals to buy and sell. The Nicaraguan government committed to protect the boundaries of the indigenous territories from settler (“colono”) land grabbing. In 1997, the Nicaraguan government went a step further and established Bosawás, which the indigenous people came to embrace as a pathway to enshrining their rights. The collective land titling process was finished in 2008 with the establishment of the Alta Wanki y Bocay indigenous zone, which includes Kipla Sait Tasbaika.

Indigenous groups and environmentalists have hailed Bosawás as a major conservation success, protecting large tracts of land from deforestation and sustaining populations of endangered tropical wildlife. One sees the effectiveness of indigenous land control by comparing Bosawás to Patuca National Park, across the border in Honduras, where indigenous land titling is just in its infancy. Between 2001 and 2021 Patuca lost 34% of its forested area, compared to 16% in Bosawás, and more than half of that land clearing in Bosawás was in the last 6 years of that period, when government enforcement of indigenous territorial  boundaries dropped precipitously. Looking within Bosawás, Anthony Stocks et al, in a 2007 report  detail how the southern, mestizo controlled areas of Bosawás were deforested at 16 times the rate of indigenous lands, owing to the combination of more intense land clearing per capita and mestizo population explosion. 

For 20 years, the indigenous controlled parts of Bosawás remained largely protected, with indigenous groups maintaining sustainable, low impact land use and leaving aside the majority of their territory as untouched land reserve. However, with the decline of enforcement of indigenous territorial borders has come  a corresponding crisis of colono invasion, demonstrably eroding forest protection.  The brunt of forest degradation, territory loss, and violence from the invasion has been experienced by the Mayangna who live in more sparsely populated parts of Bosawás.

The Lakus River’s isolation has resulted until recently in remarkable forest conservation. However, satellite data from 2018 on show that forested areas are now rapidly deteriorating. Colonos have created illegal access trails into the upper tributaries of the Lakus, connecting to mestizo towns of Suina and Bonanza.  Illegal non-indigenous land grabbing is now spreading rapidly down river.

Land Grabbing, Deforestation, and Cattle

The guardabosques are indigenous forest rangers. While there has in the past been external financial support for the guardabosques, the work is now voluntary. Demasio Lopez, a guardabosque of Ahsa Was, near the mouth of the Bocay River, describes how rainforest wildlife like tapir, peccary, guan are disappearing because of the increased colono pressures, with doubling or tripling the time and distance between wildlife encounters during forest surveys over the last decade.  Indigenous hunters in Arang Dak similarly describe needing to spend twice as long as a decade ago to find game animals and fish. 

Since 2000, land cleared in Bosawás for cattle and agriculture has doubled, from 15% to 30% of the reserve, overwhelmingly due to non-indigenous settlers. While the indigenous population is moving toward stabilizing, the population of mestizo colonos has been ballooning through immigration. A study in the late 90s by the Nature Conservancy found that the mestizo population within Bosawás was growing at the astounding rate of 17% per year. Recent interviews with Mayangna leaders from different territories indicate that this has only accelerated, with illegal colono populations reportedly doubling every few years in the territories of Sauni As, Sauni Arungka, and Awas Tingni.

Guardabosques speak of experiencing very different land ethics from colonos.  They see colonos treating the land as a route to quick profit rather than as a multi-generational home, the way Mayangna and Miskito see the land. While data showing that the cattle ranching colonos clear drastically more land per capita than the indigenous Mayangna, this is still only part of the story. A Mayangna finca is used for about 7 years as it gradually returns to forest. Within 10 years after it is abandoned, the land has already recovered 90% of its pre-clearing forest ecosystem qualities. Cattle ranching, on the other hand, has much heavier impacts on the land, leaving the land depleted and taking many  decades to recover.

As detailed in a recent report from Insight Crime, the regional illegal cattle industry is enormous. Drug cartels use the cattle sales to launder money, use the ranches as part of the transportation routes for cocaine, and use violence to secure the land and avoid law enforcement. Ranching in Bosawás is estimated to be on the order of 200,000 head of cattle, much of it raised illegally on stolen indigenous lands. Neighboring forests in Honduras are often cleared for massive ranches, reportedly owned directly by cartels. In Bosawás, however, the pattern of land clearing is more patchy, indicating independent colonos and smaller gangs, who then sell the cattle to larger criminal groups transporting it north. 

While indigenous territories are legally under local indigenous authority, by colonial custom, if land was “undeveloped” and someone cleared a pathway or carril around a section of land, then they would claim the land. Unscrupulous land thieves have been clearing carrils in indigenous territories and then selling land to poor, non-indigenous campesinos. The land thieves are not just mestizo colonos, but as pointed out by Mayangna Jesus Demasio and others, also include unscrupulous indigenous individuals, falsely claiming to have the authority to sell the land. While individual indigenous families may have temporary exclusive land use rights, the territories are collectively owned and can not be sold. Unscrupulous lawyers however are willing to draw up documents that make the land sales seem legal. The trade in illegal land is facilitated by organized groups building informal roads into Bosawás, accessing areas that were formerly only accessible from the rivers via indigenous villages.

Colonos sometimes have no idea that their land purchases are illegal. In other cases, particularly when organized crime and powerful local economic interests  are involved, they don’t care. Colonos claim entitlement to the land because they bought it and insist that the Mayangna reimburse them if they want it back. Mayangna like Lopez believe that colonos should take it up with the land thieves they paid if they want their money back. The Mayangna would not have the resources to buy it back, in any case. While the land sales are illegal, the Mayangna are then faced with poor, armed settlers who have invested in the land and feel the right to be there, a situation made worse by historically rooted racism and long distances from police outposts. 

Violence

Bosawás land confrontations have turned violent. Indigenous people have been terrorized off of their land, injured, kidnapped, or killed. The Mayangna have repeatedly informed the police about death threats but government response has been inadequate. Between 2011 and 2020, there were reports of over 62 Mayangna and Miskitu killed in the region in land disputes.  These include targeting of indigenous leaders and their families. One who was killed, Miskitu youth leader Mark Rivas, claimed that members of the Kokolon gang had infiltrated the local military, the gang  later reported responsible for the 2020 and 2021 attacks in Sauni As, just west of the Lakus, where 20 more Mayangna were killed.  While over 80 assailants were involved in the 2021 attack, and with witnesses willing to testify, only one person was arrested, released quickly with no charges. This has been until this year the only arrest reported in any of the attacks against the Mayangna over the last decade. Meanwhile, authorities have circulated through Mayangna and Miskitu communities confiscating “unregistered” rifles, ostensibly to “control the violence”. The UN High Commissioner on the Attacks Against Indigenous Peoples has called on the Nicaraguan government to investigate these murders, prosecute those responsible, and to act more forcefully on the problem of land invasions and violence in Bosawás.

In January of this year, responding to an attack on a Mayangna village, Mayangna guardabosques from Sauni As captured 24 colonos who were then passed to the Nicaraguan police and taken to Managua for trial, the first mass arrest in the history of these land thefts. Because of previous government inaction, Mayangna are skeptical of the colonos facing charges. 

Violence has escalated and gotten closer to the Lakus. On 20 February of this year, a group of Mayangna in Sauni Bu indigenous territory coming to evict colonos up the Pilawas were ambushed near the southern edge of the Lakus watershed.  The colonos killed an accompanying police officer. No response has been reported yet from the police. In a further escalation, on March 13 another organized attack involving approximately 70 heavily armed colonos happened in Sauni As, killing another 5 Mayangna. 

Lakus invasion

In 2018, Arang Dak villagers started to see cleared carrils in the upper reaches of the Lakus. Fearing for their lives, indigenous villagers abandoned outlying fincas and retreated back into the relative safety of the main village. In January 2022, a party of 30 Mayangna and Miskitu guardabosques armed with hunting rifles made a joint expedition up the Lakus to contact the colonos, hoping to avoid the bloodshed being experienced elsewhere in Bosawás. While wanting to avoid conflict, there is an awareness that inaction would lead to loss of rights and lands. The guardabosques encountered a temporary encampment of 6 colonos scouting and clearing land at the confluence of the Lakus and Mura Tingni, about 20 km from Arang Dak. After a brief standoff, the colonos surrendered their guns and agreed to meet with Arang Dak community leader, Nacilio Miguel. The Mayangna shared food with the colonists, signaling that they wanted to avert violence, not start it.

In interviews, the detained colonos reported that a village had been created an hour up the Mura Tingni, with at least 11 households. Trail access had been built to the river system, giving access from Bonanza. Four of the colonos had purchased land in Bonanza from two men, known to the Arang Dak villagers for illegal land sales elsewhere in Bosawás. Their identities were confirmed with photos. The 6 colonos themselves were from different parts of Nicaragua and told the same story that colonos tell elsewhere … they were told that the land was available to be developed and had legal-looking land titles drawn up by lawyers. 

The Maynagna released the colonos with a warning, returning the rifles. They asked the men to communicate to the other colonos that the Mayangna wanted to maintain open communication and did not want things get violent. They communicated their shared position as poor people in Nicaragua, but that the Lakus watershed is indigenous territory.

In reality, they would not have been able to do much else. In this encounter, the Mayangna had the numerical advantage, but this would not have been the case up river. They did not have the guns or men necessary to expel the numerous and better armed colonos from the watershed. Detaining these 6 men further and ejecting them from the territory could have invited violent reprisal, and the Mayangna did not have the enforcement capacity to keep them from returning.

Satellite images from Global Forest Watch reveal that the land clearing up the Mura Tingni had begun 5 years previously, in 2017 (see timelapse). The maps also show colono activity up all the tributaries:  the main Lakus, starting in 2018, the Muru Lak, starting in 2019, and the Susumwas, starting in 2020. Before 2017, the 450+ sq km of upper watershed was untouched. Between 2019 and 2021, colonos cleared about 6% of the upper watershed… almost 3 times as much land clearing as the Mayangna in the previous 20 years in the entire 800 sq km watershed.  This is horrific for one of the most difficult to reach and until now best preserved sections of Bosawás. In all 3 cases, illegal land clearing drastically accelerated in 2020, in parallel with the covid pandemic.  

To make matters worse, conservationists have identified 4 pinch points in the Central American rainforest as vital for maintaining forest connectivity. The deforestation in the upper Lakus watershed threatens to cut off 2 of the 4 pinch points, essential as wildlife corridors for endangered mammals like jaguar which require large territories to thrive and reproduce. As these corridors are degraded, it puts enormous, unique stress on endangered tropical wildlife populations. 

Land invasion continues to accelerate. Visual inspection of satellite images from 2022 shows at least 80 new sites of land clearing in the upper Lakus. Arang Dak guardabosques in a fall expedition found carrils cut within 4km of the village.  These areas could be cleared as soon as spring of 2023. The chain of land clearings up the Pilawas, where the officer was recently killed, extend down into the Susumwas, the closest Lakus tributary to Arang Dak.

What is happening in the Lakus is a microcosm of what is happening throughout the region: escalating colono invasion, false land titles, increasing threat and violence, and rapid forest loss. Starting in 2016, colono land clearings started to drastically accelerate in the surrounding indigenous territories of Sauni Bas, Sauni Bu, Sauni As, Li Lamni Tisbaika, and Wangky Li Aubra. Indigenous people not only lose territory, but in some cases are completely driven out of their villages.  

What is needed to protect the Lakus watershed

Unlike in neighboring indigenous territory in Honduras, the laws already exist in Nicaragua to protect indigenous land ownership. Nicaragua has actually led the way in Central America in this regard. The problem is that of enforcing existing laws and indigenous land rights. Mayanga leaders from different parts of Bosawás call for an end to the illegal land sales, for those selling and clearing the land to be held accountable, but this requires the Nicaraguan government to invest more in protecting indigenous territorial boundaries and colono eviction. 

The Mayangna of Arang Dak already see that they have lost much of their territory to colonos. Without intervention, this could lead to the Mayangna being marginalized and squeezed out of their own territory. Even if they were to allow the colonos already there to settle, it would not solve the problem as it would give the colonos a strong position from which to further encroach on indigenous land.

More materially, the Mayangna are seeking support to help them take care of their own territorial defense.  The first near term objective is to perform regular expeditions up the Lakus and its tributaries to stop the clearing of carrils and the clearing of new forest areas. The second is to establish a permanent base camp up river from Arang Dak. This would facilitate these expeditions, as well as more continuous forest and water monitoring. It would also create a contact point as colonos came down river, in order to dissuade further encroachment. These are dangerous actions, but more so without support.

With the contentious 2021 elections past, some have hoped that the government will reprioritize  enforcement of the Bosawás boundaries. Photos and videos from the encounter with the colonists and satellite images of illegal land clearing activity in the upper tributaries of the Lakus were shared by Mayangna in a recent meeting with government environmental officials. The Mayangna and Miskitu hope that international attention may bring further action. Whatever happens, the indigenous peoples want to avoid the displacement and bloodshed they experienced in 1980s.

The Nicaraguan government has had a mixed relationship to the indigenous controlled areas and conservation.  On the one hand, Nicaragua has led other central American countries in indigenous land titling and supplied infrastructural support to indigenous villages, and led Central America in the creation of Bosawás. However, in the June of this year, the Sandinistas shut down over 250 environmental and social NGOs over concerns of “foreign interference”. Running counter to the conservation mandate of Bosawás, the Ortega government in December 2021 granted gold mining concessions under 70% of the Bosawás Biosphere reserve and was in the approval process for the remaining 30%.

UN Food and Agriculture Organization has also over the last 30 years singled out Nicaragua as the country with the worst rate of deforestation in the western hemisphere. As Nicaragua runs out of forest to clear, the deforestation frontier is turning more and more to indigenous and reserve territories.There is some international pressure for change. The UN High Commissioner on attacks on indigenous people has called on the Nicaraguan government to act more forcefully on the problem of land invasions and violence in Bosawás. In 2019, the Nicaraguan Alliance of Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples (APIAN) objected to the World Bank claiming that government inaction in the face of escalating violence, land theft, and deforestation, as well as the signing of REDD agreements without indigenous consultation, is a violation of the terms of REDD agreements. The Mayangna of the Lakus, motivated by legitimate fears of impending violence and serious degradation of their territories, are searching for external support. They have come to see that the only way these land invasions will stop is if they are empowered and supported to stop them themselves.