Julio César Murillo’s backyard has freezers stocked with fish for the acopio, or market, he runs out of his home along the lake. Fishermen pull up in their boats to sell their catch, which Murillo then sells to larger distributors who supply nearby cities such as Managua and Granada. He typically buys anywhere between 500 and 2,000 pounds of fish per day.

Nicaragua produces about 18.5 million pounds of fish per year, according to the Central Bank of Nicaragua. While the majority of that comes from the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, small-scale fishing from Lake Nicaragua is the lifeblood of communities such as San Miguelito.

Murillo estimates there are only about 30 fishing boats in the town, but each boat has three workers. And “each fisherman is the head of a household.” He said there are also 20 or so buyers, or paneros, in San Miguelito who bring the fish to nearby communities to sell, and two acopios.

But sitting in an open-air space in the back of his home, where a banner for the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front party hangs on the wall, Julio César and his wife Lilleth Flores say they’re not worried about the canal.

“The people really concerned are the peasants, whose property is going to be affected,” said Murillo.

On Christmas Eve, two days after the official groundbreaking of the canal project, protests erupted at several points along the proposed route. The most violent clashes were about a 25-minute drive away from San Miguelito in El Tule. According to La Prensa, a local daily, riot police fired tear gas and the altercation left 50 peasants injured.

“The situation with the canal is very difficult with the people because it’s not going well,” said María Consuelo, who owns a general store in the center of town. “Here we don’t have any problems because it doesn’t affect us directly. Where it’s going to go through — that’s where the problem is.”

According to a December poll by M&R Consultants, about two-thirds of Nicaraguans who don’t live directly along the canal route support the project. Of those who do live along the route, support drops to 42 percent. A majority of the country also believes the canal represents an opportunity to restore and preserve Lake Nicaragua, with only 14 percent of those living far from the route believing it will damage the lake.