Green Empowerment

Green Empowerment has worked with the community of El Bote and ATDER-BL (the Association of Rural Development Workers- Benjamin Linder) to establish a Forest Reserve that will include about 1600 acres of the El Bote watershed.

To date, we have helped ATDER-BL purchase over 600 acres of primary rainforest along the peaks of mountains surrounding the watershed. The land was purchased for about $45 per acre of virgin rainforest. These initial parcels were chosen based on the number of springs on the land, the density of the remaining old growth cover, and the steep grade of the land which--if cut for farming purposes--would result in significant erosion. We are dedicated to raising an additional funds to purchase the balance of the critical acres of the El Bote Forest Reserve. Click here to contribute to watershed work right now.

The New England Biolabs Foundation is supporting a series of educational workshops and exchanges in the community that will help preserve the watershed while improving the socio-economic conditions of the people that live in El Bote. These participatory workshops cover forest reserve and watershed management, sustainable agriculture, environmental health and gender issues.

In addition to protecting their watershed, and allowing the planned micro hydro system to function, this Forest Reserve will play an important role as a buffer zone for the BOSAWAS Biosphere Reserve, the largest intact rainforest in Central America. More than half of the BOSAWAS reserve is located in the Cuá-Bocay municipality.

The BOSAWAS Reserve is home to enormous diversity of plants and animals, including jaguars, howler monkeys, and canopy orchids. The massive trees include ceiba, cedar, mahogany, bamboo, walnut, rosewood, rubber, and comanegro. There are more than 7,000 species of plants, 600 species of amphibians and reptiles, 700 or more types of birds, and countless numbers of invertebrates. One-third of the summer songbird population of the United States, including the rose-breasted grosbeak and the scarlet tanager, migrate through the BOSAWAS Reserve. The BOSAWAS Reserve is an important center of biological diversity, which, if lost, will be gone forever.

The BOSAWAS is the traditional home to about 13,000 indigenous Sumu (Mayangna) and Miskitu peoples. While the Reserve is protected by the Nicaraguan Constitution and by international environmental agreements, illegal logging and population incursion into the BOSAWAS continues.
The Cuá-Bocay zone serves as a buffer zone to the BOSAWAS Reserve on the east and the El Bote river is a major tributary to the Bocay River, the heart of the BOSAWAS.

Stabilizing this buffer is critical to the preservation of the BOSAWAS. If the landless campesinos and unemployed urban workers have no alternative, the exploitation and deforestation of the BOSAWAS by “slash and burn” agriculture and settlement will continue. ATDER, with Green Empowerment’s help, offers an alternative by developing economic opportunity and stability in this buffer zone, as well as initiating programs of sustainable agriculture and reforestation.

Green Empowerment became involved after a group of 14 campesinos from El Bote had traveled to nearby San Jose de Bocay to learn from that community’s 8-year history of watershed management and rehabilitation.

Green Empowerment funded an extensive study of the watershed of El Bote in order to establish a Forest Reserve and design an integrated land management plan. Green Empowerment volunteer and watershed specialist, Esther Lev, visited this project in March 2001 to review and comment on the study and outlined plan.

Green Empowerment has initiated the El Bote micro hydro project that will serve thousands of people. The dam and civil works are completed, but the machinery and distribution systems are still being developed. With your support , we can help this community complete the micro hydro project and begin to enjoy clean and reliable energy. The El Bote Mini-Hydro Project and will provide electricity for the communities of El Bote, El Galope, and Chico Estrada. It is located 25 kilometers northeast of El Cuá.