by Greg Bowles
A journey into the region where Sustainable Harvest International of Nicaragua works has a heart of darkness aspect. The goal: to bring forth a certain sort of light in the form of teaching about sustainable agriculture and promoting reforestation in an area hard hit by rampant slash-and-burn practices.
Just to reach the work area takes the better part of a day, first by boat leaving the Atlantic Coast city of Bluefields onto open ocean before turning into the mouth of the Kukra River. At that point, the jungle overgrowth becomes a long hallway along which the boat navigates inland, the sun occasionally blotted out by a canopy of leaves closing the sky overhead. My wife, Mercedes and I accompanied the SHI staff on a trip to understand both the work SHI does and the conditions of that work.
