If a shadowy Chinese billionaire has his way, the fishermen’s shacks that dot the shores of Brito, on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast, will soon be barreled over. Waves of multiton trenchers and dredging machines will enter the mouth of the Brito River and churn their way inland before entering Lake Nicaragua, Central America’s largest and most biodiverse reservoir. Then they will slice their way through the rain forests, wetlands and indigenous communities that typify the country’s east, until they reach Rio Punta Gorda, on the Caribbean coast.

Finally, they will have given birth to the 172-mile Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal — what has been billed as the largest engineering endeavor in history.

But the project, which critics claim marks a new era of colonialism in Nicaragua, has so far raised eyebrows as much for its secrecy as for its titanic ambitions. More than two years after its announcement, a final exact route for the canal has yet to be pinned down. Very little is known about Wang Jing, the Chinese telecom magnate who has been granted a 50-year concession to build and operate the canal, with the option to extend the concession for 50 years. One has to strain to see signs of construction along the tentative route. And Nicaraguans are still waiting for a long-promised environmental impact study.

In December in Brito, at a ceremony that has come to epitomize the project’s nebulous history, Wang inaugurated the canal’s construction. But independent journalists and international media were kept away from the event. Wang insisted that all the canal’s problems have been solved but provided no details. Among scores of questions, critics wonder how the Hong Kong Nicaragua Development (HKND) Group, the holding company created by Wang to finance the project, will raise the estimated $50 billion needed to complete the project in five years — a time frame that has been roundly panned as quixotic.



Below: A panoramic view of the Nicaraguan coastline near Brito.

Drag left and right to see the entire photograph.

