A century ago, Panama beat out Nicaragua to snag one of the biggest engineering projects of the age: a U.S.-backed canal that would link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, creating a shorter trade route between East and West. In 2014 - the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal's completion - Nicaragua made plans for its own interoceanic linkage, which would be triple the length of Panama's. If completed, the project could break Panama's longstanding monopoly on the shipping trade in the region - but at a severe ecological price. The 175-mile-long canal, which was set to break ground in December, would cut a 1,700-foot-wide swath through two nature reserves, home to rare cloud forests and several endangered species of amphibians, birds and mammals. Designed to serve modern ships with larger hulls, the 90-foot-deep canal also would require dredging 65 miles across Lake Nicaragua, Central America's largest lake and a key source of drinking water.
展开▼
