Nicaragua will train soldiers to become environmental watchdogs as part of a project to deploy an “eco-battalion” in the country’s most remote and unregulated protected areas. More than two decades after the end of the contra war, which ravaged Nicaragua’s countryside, the military is using foreign aid to protect the country’s two biggest natural reserves, according to Gen. Orlando Talavera, the military’s director of civil affairs. The battalion will be sent to the Bosawás biosphere reserve along Nicaragua’s northern border with Honduras, and south to the Indio Maíz biological reserve, which borders Costa Rica. Says Talavera: “The military is the motor guaranteeing environmental laws are enforced.” The first “ecological battalion” in Central America will tap US$6 million in aid from Finland, Norway and... [Log in to read more]