This eliminates the customary middlemen who eat up a large portion of the landowners' profits. Forest owners are responsible for paying loggers and truck, tractor or oxen drivers. Ulises Cordero stands nearby, poised with his chainsaw. In the Foresta Project, local villagers like Don Ulises buy these scraps, saw them into boards on-site and sell them to furniture makers. Foresta also established tree nurseries, now managed by local residents, that sell only native species.
Farmers plant the seedlings on their worn-out pasture land.
The bio-rich central mountain range is home to more than half of the country's wildlife species. Once favorite spots for twilight strolls and refreshing swims, the lagoons that encircle Nicaragua's capital city of Managua are in dismal condition. The government built a floating amphitheater in Tiscapa Lagoon and rows of seats on her banks. But the theater sunk, people stole the seats for scrap metal and stripped the banks of trees for firewood. So the group solicited help from the Nicaraguan Army, which now guards Tiscapa.