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To answer your question peterchristopher about what we are going to do with the land to preserve the ecology...

First of all, we have a small development by other's standards, approximately 100 acres.  The more important part is that this piece of land is in a key location, nestled between the Cosiguina volcano itself, the Pacific Ocean and surrounded by the Cosiguina Nature Reserve.  This piece of land was stripped down from the natural habitat to make a peanut (mani) farm years ago by the previous owner.  Although I have nothing against farming and grew up in the prairies of Canada in a farming community, I think it was unfortunate to have this tract of land be stripped to the dirt in an area where there are endangered species, one of which is the Great Green Macaw parrot which is not found in very many other places outside of this area.  Of course there are many other animal species as well as the protected hardwood trees, etc.

As I said in my previous post, my goal is to help not only the flora and fauna of the area but to help the local people too.  So through a combination of numerous things I hope to be able to accomplish both.

Firstly, we are going to reforest the bulk of the property with indigenous plants.  We are going to create an interpretive center for the Cosiguina hotspring volcano to help educate people about the local flora and fauna and this will include a rehabilitation center for injured or orphaned wildlife.  During the egg laying season of the turtles we will assist the government in protecting the beaches from poachers (which is a real problem).  This was done last year by several volunteers even before we have done any development on the property.  Of course all the buildings will be as low impact as possible and will be powered by wind and solar, composting toilets will be used, etc.

To help the locals improve their quality of life without impacting their culture we are going to create a small market area for the locals to sell their handicrafts, seafood, etc.  I am currently working with Canadian baseball clubs to provide us with baseball equipment and will be building a baseball field for the local kids to play on.  We are also making a "skills exchange" area where those who purchase in our development can teach skills to and learn skills from the locals.  We want to be a part of the community, not build walls around ourselves to keep out the community.

So you can see, our ideas are a mix of helping the environment and the people.  Perhaps I am naive and there are plenty of negative people who will make comments like "I hope Ortega doesn't take your land when you are done." but if all of us were like them, nothing would ever improve.

I do wish though that people who make comments like that would understand the history of land confiscation in the distant past.  I'm not taking political sides here but if you look at the past land issues from many Nicaraguan's perspective, you will find that the ruling party before Ortega's revolution in the 80's took land from poor farmers and gave it to their friends.  People don't revolt for no reason.  To a great deal of Nicaraguan's, Ortega is a hero, he took power away from the corrupt rulers and gave the land back to the people.  Of course the friends of the earlier regime didn't like that their land had been taken back and were very vocal about it.  So as North American's all we heard was Ortega was a mad man taking away land.  That was over 20 years ago, and as I said earlier, I'm not taking any political sides but many Nicaraguans feel that returning their land to them was the right thing to do.  Now some of them have chosen to sell and that is their right.

If you talk with Nicaraguans now they would laugh if you said you were afraid that the government will take your land.  Sure they are working on straightening out some title issues, but issues like overlapping lots because of poor surveying techniques in the past happen in the US and Canada too.  The overwhelming intent of the government is to attract investment to the country.  Last week I met with many top officials in the Nicaraguan government and without exception, all were very interested in making sure that our development is a success because it brings money and jobs while being eco-friendly.  Nicaragua has some of the most protected natural reserve land in Central America and if they can get help with continuing that while helping their economy through jobs and investment they are very keen on it.