The following article was printed in the July 6th, 2007 edition of El Nuevo Diario.

"Los Congos" reforests Laguna de Apoyo

Eco-tourism Project promises to give benefits to Diria

Martín Mulligan

http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/
2007/06/19/departamentales/51636

Diria

The members of City Hall of Diria, the representative of the Institute of Tourism from Granada and the media, the partners of the company Laguna S.A. they released the eco-tourist project: "Los Congos", that will take place at Laguna de Apoyo.

The eco-tourist project, which covers a extension of 330 Manzanas (574.2 acres) on the slopes of Apoyo, located in Diria Area, they will assign 100 Manzanas (174 acres) for the construction of a hotel resort that promises to be a economic and promoting engine for tourism in the town.

Tourist Corridor with Mombacho

The president and vice president of the project, Jeffrey Finch and Ausberto Narvaez, respectively, announced a reforestation campaign on the slopes of the Laguna planting 100 thousand trees during 2007, though in total they expect to plant 500 thousand within a five-year term.

Narvaez explained that the ?Los Congos? plan possess various components, among them, make a tourist corridor between Mombacho and Laguna de Apoyo, a public playground for kids and establish a sustainable dynamic and self-supply of food.

"Los Congos" will construct a resort of 60 bedrooms within areas where there is no vegetation, complying with the environmental recommendations of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA). Among these regulations, the project considers to include waste water treatment plant making sure that they will not remove nor pour water on the Laguna.

Indian Grass will be used to avoid landslides

The agronomist consultant and ethnic-botanical Chris Shanks, who works for this project, pointed out that they will plant indigenous trees as Madero Negro (blackwood), Cedro (cedar), jenizaro, guanacaste and an organic production of diverse fruit and vegetable tree for self-supply.

He emphasizes that they consider planting Vetiver, specie of grass, original from India, brought into the country more than two decades, and currently it is found wild in Masatepe, it has the characteristic of being sterile and to help keep the land from sliding in the future.

They give response to END previous publications.

On the other hand, Narvaez recognized that because of the "lack of communication" between the local authorities, initially the project had some problems which in their moment were published in El NUEVO DIARIO.

Concerning to the current relationship with the City Hall of Diria, and the way of publishing the project via internet and the charges brought by the Association of Municipalities of the Laguna de Apoyo Basin (Amictlan), were some of the subjects we talked about with the partners.

"there is an organization that has been against our project, and they have repeated that no one can?t built anything within the Laguna over and over again, however, they all live down Laguna de Apoyo and have built their own homes and they are contaminating the Laguna, because they have not taken in consideration that we have used the necessaries envinronmental means authorized by MARENA" exposed Narvaez.