Motores del acaparamiento de tierra en Nicaragua:

Abstract

This article analyzes the drivers of land grabbing in Nicaragua, specifically in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve. The Bosawas Biosphere Reserve has not escaped the recent dynamics of dispossession and land grabbing because the predominant vision is that it is a reservoir of resources (forest, mining, and water) and is free land for colonization. Its creation in 1991 had the aim of preserving the forests in the face of the wave of colonization by those unarmed after the civil war of 1980. This generated the reappropriation of control by the Nicaraguan State in the territories traditionally occupied by the Miskitus and Mayangnas indigenous peoples and, therefore, land conflicts. During the Ortega governments (2007–2021), an extractivist model has been promoted, mainly with incentives and concessions for mining exploitation. The groups or actors promoting land grabbing in Bosawas are diverse, they develop legal and illegal activities and are highly related by political and economic interests, including global commodity demands, which increases the complexity of the process of dispossession of both indigenous communal and national land.