Coping with climate change on the Río Coco

Nicaragua’s Mosquitía region is one of the most isolated and underdeveloped areas of Central America. The region is largely neglected by the national government. Health, education and other services are poor. There is no electricity and no telephones.

The majority of people living in the region are Miskito Indians – the poorest ethnic group in Nicaragua.

“People survive by growing rice and beans, and also by fishing and hunting,” explains Brunwell Perez Bell, an educator who works with Miskito communities along the banks of the Río Coco. “People plant for their own consumption.”

Life has always been tough – with landmines planted during the war years of the 1980s still making it difficult for people to cultivate new land – though up until recently, the Miskito people have just about managed to get by.

But, in the past 10 years or so, the pattern of rainfall has been changing. Landslides and topsoil erosion have laid the riverbanks bare and left the area even more prone to flooding. Heavy rains during what is traditionally the dry season have wreaked havoc with people’s crops, and communities are struggling to grow enough food.

“The rice crop was destroyed by floods,” says Brunwell. “Communities are unable to grow rice in significant quantities because of all this rain.”

The turning point for the Miskito people was in October 1998, when Hurricane Mitch caused devastation throughout the region.

“Everything was completely under water,” tells Brunwell. “Many farm animals died, and the whole rice crop was lost.” Since Hurricane Mitch there has been a change in the climate. Now there is frequent flooding, which affects the crops badly.

Oxfam has been providing support to local organisations to help them deal with the expected effects of a changing climate. Food has been distributed up and down the river, but the community needs more support if it is to become completely self-sufficient.

 “People have been having discussions about the possibility of planting an alternative crop. But at the moment beans are the only crop that is reliable,” says Brunwell. “Some families might have a cow or two, but when they face serious difficulties they resort to selling their animals.”

In desperate times, selling off the little livestock they have may be the only means of providing income for some Miskito people. But in the long-term it only serves to make the situation worse, as they lose the only insurance they are able to fall back on.

Weather stations set up by Oxfam along the banks of the Río Coco help the Miskito Indians cope with the impacts brought about by ever more unpredictable weather patterns. But climate change is likely to mean more flooding, more crop failures, more suffering, and ultimately the greatest threat to the survival of Nicaragua’s largest indigenous group.

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