NGO leaders in Puerto Cabezas hammer down a set of environmental recommendations.

The search for a new kind of government

On Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, local communities embrace the burdens and rewards of autonomy

The pickup bounced violently over the washboard road that headed north from the town of Puerto Cabezas. The landscape was flat, its monotony broken only by an occasional village or a stream. Most of the bridges were destroyed, and the driver would turn off the road to and down the steep sides of the gully to a crossing point. There he would pause, and then gun the engine to send the vehicle lurching over the rounded stones to safety on the other side.

At one such place, a pair of road workers, spotting the oncoming vehicle, hurriedly strung a rope festooned with rags across the road and demanded 10 cordobas (about 80 U.S. cents). Since the government did not have the equipment or resources to fix the road, the local community took the matter into its own hands, and the wihta (the Miskito Indian word for judge) authorized the collection of funds.

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