After a long battle, the Korean multinational SOLCARSA withdrew from Nicaragua on March 31. SOLCARSA had invested $15 million in the region to develop infrastructure to log indigenous lands. SOLCARSA's logging concession would have destroyed 150,000 acres of rainforest to make plywood. International solidarity, court action and indigenous resistance were key in forcing SOLCARSA back across the ocean.

In early February, the Nicaraguan Supreme Court found for the second time that the SOLCARSA concessions were illegal. The Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources then declared the concessions closed. SOLCARSA was also repeatedly refused entry into the area by indigenous Mayangna from the Wakamby area. In addition, poor management and the instability of the Korean stock market had bankrupt SOLCARSA parent corporation Kum Kyung by the end of November 1997.

SOLCARSA's departure follows in the wake of reports by Managua's Centro Alexander von Humboldt that, "The forest fires in Nicaragua this year have been six times more [frequent] as they were in 1995. Almost all fires have occurred in the Atlantic Coast. The Bosawas Reserve saw up to 30,000 hectares on fire and the Indio Maiz Reserve as well. All the country is gloomy because so much smoke clouds the atmosphere. For at least four days the airport has been closed during the last two weeks."

Nicaraguan environmental groups and non-governmental organizations hailed the SOLCARSA victory while calling for the company to resolve the loose ends of its withdrawal. Not least among those ends is the company's failure to pay three months of wages to 150 workers. Likewise, the company abandoned its sawmill and plywood processing plant. There is great concern over the potential that SOLCARSA will sell the operation to another extractive company.

Write the Nicaraguan government and stress that the SOLCARSA concession reveals weaknesses in the government's ability to protect Nicaragua's environment. Insist that there be no further concessions on indigenous lands. President Aleman, Casa de la Presidencia, Managua, Nicaragua; fax 011 505 228 7911.