HAULOVER, Nicaragua – When the leaders of a Miskito indigenous village returned to their homes days after Hurricane Iota last November, they found their lush community in northeastern Nicaragua in ruins – and the coastline itself was transformed.
Its colorful wooden houses, perfect for postcards, have been torn down and the beaches with coconut trees devastated. The surrounding mangrove forests that provided protection and nutrition for the village, known as Haulover, were damaged and destroyed. Water wells contaminated with salt water.
And a wedge of ocean the width of a football field now cuts through the middle of the city, leaving the villagers with an agonizing question: stay and rebuild or resettle inland?
“I never imagined arriving in the community and not finding any point of reference,” said Marcos Williamson, an ecologist at the Universidad Autónoma Regional de Puerto Cabezas who is conducting an environmental assessment. “It was like a bomb went off and the community practically disappeared.”
Hurricane Iota, the most powerful hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic record season, hit the coast directly on November 16 on the impoverished northeast coast, forcing thousands of people to evacuate.
More than two months later, Haulover’s nearly 300 families are torn between rebuilding on the same vulnerable coastline or moving a few kilometers inland, behind natural barriers that protect against a storm.
Some 60 families have decided to relocate inland, but this will likely require the adoption of agricultural practices – a complicated transition for an indigenous people with a strong dependence on the sea.
Despite the growing dangers posed by climate change, many Haulover residents are reluctant to seek higher ground.
“People here prefer to stay here,” said Jomary Budier, a lifelong resident. “If they want to take us somewhere far from the ocean, they will not go.”
It is a decision that nobody wants to make.
For many Miskitos, retreating inland would mean not only partially abandoning their livelihood – fishing for sea bream, sea bass and shrimp in the lagoon – but also leaving their ancestors’ resting place behind.
One day, in late December, María Pereira saw a group of men turn over her father’s crypt on the right. Hurricane Iota had left some of its bones scattered in the mangrove trees.
“We are looking for the remains of my father, who died four years ago,” said Periera. “We feel that his soul is lost, that he is still looking for his resting place.”
Iota, which hit steady winds of 160 miles per hour, was by far the most powerful hurricane in November on record. He overcame Hurricane Eta, which hit Haulover and the same area of the Nicaraguan coast just two weeks earlier.
The two hurricanes displaced tens of thousands of people in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, killing about 200.
Although no one died in the storms along the Haulover coast, few communities have suffered such devastation and environmental degradation.
Williamson, the ecologist, fears that the two hurricanes may have been a harbinger of things to come. He recommends a higher location, inland. The original Haulover, located on a narrow strip of sand between the ocean and a brackish lagoon, no longer looks sustainable.
“Climate change affects everyone, but it doesn’t affect us all equally,” said Williamson. “Poor communities, those that are isolated, are the ones that we see are ultimately the most affected by climate change. What worries me is that the world is not realizing this. “