Photo 4: Colonists haul goods back to the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, Nicaragua, in full view of ministry of the environment’s outpost. Photo by Paola Muñoz.

The Indio Maíz Biological Reserve comprises about 2,639 km², slightly larger than Luxembourg. It is one of the most important tropical rainforests in Central America because it is home to a ...

Rio San Juan, Nicaragua, Sep 10 (EFE). — In far southeastern Nicaragua, on the banks of the San Juan River, which forms the boundary with Costa Rica, is the Indio Maiz biological preserve, one ...

Nicaragua’s Indio Maíz reserve is a protected rainforest roughly the size of Rhode Island. It teems with life: weeping fig trees, jaguars, passion flower butterflies, and charismatic rainbow ...

Nicaragua’s Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, on the southern border with Costa Rica, is under assault. Illegal mining operations appear to be growing. Mercury and cyanide are polluting rivers. Thousands ...

Other vulnerable ecosystems 7 in the Cerro Silva–Indio Maiz–La Selva Corridor, such as the biodiversity-rich wetlands of San Miguelito and Bluefields, will suffer from dredging, sedimentation ...

In his absence, the situation in Indio-Maiz has only worsened, and President Daniel Ortega's intensifying crackdown on dissent has made it too dangerous for the filmmakers to return.

"When I came here, I knew it was a reserve. I just stole the land. I didn't pay for it," he says calmly, staring away from the camera. "If they take me out of here they can take me off the land ...

Surrounded by fallen trees and languid cows, illegal cattle rancher Chacalin surveys a clearing deep inside one of Nicaragua's largest remaining protected rainforests.