The fire on April 2018
On April 3, 2018, a settler started a raging fire that lasted for more than ten days and devoured more than six thousand hectares between the Yolillo forest (raphia taedigera) and the tropical rainforest.
The fire occurred in the Siempre Viva community of the town of San Juan de Nicaragua, in the Río San Juan Wildlife Refuge. The fire started at the Río San Juan wildlife refuge and progressed west into the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve.
It should be noted that the Siempre Viva community was established by the municipality of San Juan de Nicaragua and is located in Rama-Kriol territory without the endorsement of the communal governments for said establishment.
At the time of the fire, the communal governments of Indian River and Graytown alerted Fundación del Río and requested support to be able to travel to the area of the incident and try to put out the fire.
Fundación del Río immediately released the news of the fire through its media, urging MARENA and other authorities to take urgent action to extinguish the fire before it progressed further.
This call motivated universities and organizations and other sectors of civil society to protest and collaborate to support the communal governments that were carrying out the work of putting out the fire from the beginning.
The Indio Maíz fire has been the biggest warning of the damage that has been happening inside the reserve.
However, the problems of the protected area were not born with the largest fire reported in its core, nor have they been corrected by controlling it. On the contrary, the invasion advances silently and relentlessly.
