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Cut and paste at La Palmerita

Land rights for the farmlands at La Palmerita have been longed for by members of this new community since their arrival at the site in 2001.  Having left their homes in the north when they were displaced during the coffee crisis the former coffee workers have been disappointed by the slow progress in establishing the new community.  The legal titles for the housing area were finally granted in 2008, but with a house and no way to make a living, life at La Palmerita is still not sustainable.  In January Nuevas Esperanzas began to work with the community on the long process of dividing up the agricultural land so that the farmers will know which piece of land is theirs to cultivate and grow crops both for food and to generate an income.

This process is not easy and is not helped by the fact that, during the years of waiting, some members of the community already started to farm areas of the land informally.  The first task was to identify who has been cultivating which area of land, which is no mean feat given that the area designated for agricultural is around 350 hectares.  The Nuevas Esperanzas team made an informal survey using GPS to identify the approximate area which has been farmed.  From this data, a map was drawn up and materials prepared for a community workshop.

Around 100 people were divided into 13 small groups and each group was given the outline of their group’s area of farmed land.  Next, armed with glue, scissors and pieces of coloured card cut to the right size for each lot, the groups set about rearranging the plots to the shapes and locations they would like to own. 

Nuevas Esperanzas' volunteer, Tom Ternes, helped out at the workshop and this is what he had to say about his day at La Palmerita:

“One of Nuevas Esperanzas’ other projects that I only spent a day helping out with was probably the most interesting experience I’ve had at Nuevas Esperanzas. We had a large meeting with the 100 or so villagers and broke into groups with a poster sized layout of each group's land. We gave them different shaped cutouts each scaled to four acres and asked them to use the cutouts to subdivide the large plot into a four acre plot for each family. I had an easy group because there were only seven families but they spent a few hours carefully moving the blocks around, cutting them into sections and fiddling with them until they were all happy with the allocation. When everyone agreed to the land distribution, we had them sign the layout (some couldn’t write so they used a thumbprint) to signify their approval.  Then we took a photo of the group holding the layout as proof that they had agreed to the division. In the next few months Nuevas Esperanzas will finalize the division using a computer then survey the land and install boundary markers to establish proper land divisions.  Then it will be up to the Nicaraguan government to issue the deeds.

"The process reminded me a little of the Oklahoma land runs in the late 1880s. In the few hours we spent in La Palmerita, the villagers were deciding the fate of their families for generations to come. It was really cool for me to think that 100 years from now families will be farming plots that I helped lay out.”

20/02/09