Deep inside the verdant expanse of Nicaragua's Bosawás Biosphere Reserve—the western hemisphere's second largest rainforest—a group of Mayangna indigenous warriors wielding spears, bows, snakes and reputed magical powers are being ordered to stand down after two weeks of preparing for battle against encroaching land invaders. Leaders of the Mayangna Nation, the traditional guardians of the Bosawás, say they're giving Nicaragua's Sandinista government one last chance to oust the "colonists"—a group of timber traffickers, gold miners, farmers, cattle ranchers and land swindlers who the Mayangnas say are devouring the forest like a swarm of locusts. If the government is incapable of stopping the ravaging of indigenous communal lands, the Mayangnas say they'll take matters into their own hands. "We think the government finally realizes how serious the problem is and will remove the invaders from the forest. But if they don't act, we are prepared to move in immediately and do it for them," Mayangna president Gustavo Sebastian Lino told TIME. "This is about our survival." (MORE: The Obama Administration Looks to Latin America After Years of Neglect) Over the past five years, some 11,500 Nicaraguan settlers—including groups thought to have political ties to powerful timber-trafficking organizations—have pillaged Central America's largest forest at the appalling rate of 200-280 acres per day, according to various estimates. Two out of every three trees cut down in Nicaragua is felled inside the Bosawás, a UNESCO-protected biosphere that represents 14% of the national territory. The so-called "lungs of Mesoamerica" are now partially collapsed; Mayangna leaders claim 370,600 acres—one-tenth of the entire rainforest—has been cleared in the past five years, including 12% of the forest's nucleus. "If the government doesn't act now, in 10 years there will be nothing left to protect," says Mayangna representative Jaymond Robins. Simmering tensions came to a head on April 24, when a Mayangna patrol in the indigenous territory of Sauni As, one of the largest of the nine indigenous territories inside the Bosawás Reserve, happened upon a group of mestizo land invaders who had just converted a 35-acre swath of(http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&blog=19871253&post=86316&subd=timeglobalspin&ref=&feed=1)
Via: TIME GlobalSpin