Photos and Video Stills by Karl Frost
Arang Dak is a Mayangna village in northern Nicaragua. It sits on the Lakus River in the semi-autonomous indigenous territory of Kipla Sait Disbaika, about 2 days boat ride from the nearest road access. Much of life centers around maintaining rotating fincas … forest plots which are cleared through fire, planted with rice, beans, plantains, yucca, and other foods, maintained and harvested for several years, and eventually allowed to return to forest.
Kipla itself sits inside of the Bosawas Nature Reserve, which was established in 1991. Only the indigenous Mayangna and Miskitu are legally allowed to hunt, fish, and pursue agriculture in the reserve. For the first 20 years of Bosawas, indigenous control successfully facilitated the protection of some of the most pristine expanses of tropical rainforest in Central America, as lands outside the reserve were deforested at an alarming rate. However in the last decade, Bosawas has faced an accelerating invasion of illegal mestizo settlers, referred to as colonos. In other parts of Bosawas, this has led to violence.
As Kipla is the most remote part of Bosawas, Arang Dak has until recently been mostly spared this problem. Now, the illegal land grabbing has reached the Lakus watershed, with only limited government enforcement of indigenous territorial rights. The Mayangna of Arang Dak are trying to confront this problem before it breaks out into the violence that is occurring elsewhere in Bosawas.
In addition to his own anthropology research, Karl Frost does photographic and video documentation for the Ecology department at MPI EVA. These images were taken in support of Jeremy Koster’s ongoing research in Arang Dak.
The exhibition will be up at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig) through October 2022. The institute canteen is open for lunch.
Find more of Karl’s photos at CulturalVariant on Instagram