The lake environment

In the five years since Crescent Hill folks first visited El Estor, the nickel mine has resumed operations (as well as essentially shutting down an Estoreño Presbytery congregation when it took over the land it and some of its worshipers were on) and a sugar cane plant has begun operating west of Panzos. Both of these have likely polluted Lake Izabal and the local water supply. Algae was very visible in the lake which probably has helped deplete the fish supply. The ratio between land using as plantation agriculture and ranching land, as well between plantation agriculture and subsistence farming, has apparently shifted in plantation agriculture’s favor. More and more land along the roadsides is now devoted to the growing and harvesting of coffee, fruit, timber, sugar cane, and palm oil, among others. All of this has reduced the amount of available land for people in the area to live on and farm on (and even to plant churches on).

-Perry