Estimates of how much it would cost to build a Nicaraguan Canal vary but if you’ve got upwards of $40bn (£31bn) in your bank account, suggests Rodrigue, you might just about be able to do it. That’s about twice the cost of London’s new Crossrail railway, which can carry around 200 million passengers every year. Investors interested in a Nicaragua Canal project would have to be assured of a steady flow of ships for years to come, Rodrigue adds, since it is the transit fees from those vessels that would allow the new canal to generate income for its owners.
Even if that were guaranteed, there would undoubtedly be environmental consequencesassociated with such a megaproject. In the past, opponents of the idea have cited destruction of rainforest and wetland, contamination of Lake Nicaragua’s freshwater, and disruption to important waterways in the vicinity as potential ramifications.
Despite these hurdles, some have tried to do it. In 2013, a Chinese firm called HKND signed an agreement with the Nicaraguan government, which granted the company a 50-year right to build the canal, renewable for a further 50 years. However, the handshakes and overtures have so far come to nothing. HKND closed its office in Hong Kong in 2018. Attempts by the BBC to contact the firm were also unsuccessful. HKND’s website now redirects to an online gambling page.
Sarah McCall Harris wrote a PhD thesis detailing resistance to the project from local communities in Nicaragua while she was at the University of Denver. “It tended to be led by women,” she says. “Many people were interested in doing what they could to voice their concern and protest.” She notes how some residents felt that the whole scheme lacked transparency and sufficient environmental safeguards, something HKND rejected at the time. McCall Harris, who now works for Centenary College of Louisiana, even questions whether Nicaragua was genuinely committed to the plans. Given the involvement of a Chinese company, perhaps the Nicaraguan government was more interested in posturing – and showing the US it could make other partners, she says.
Although work appears to have stalled, Nicaraguan officials insist that the project is not dead. During a visit to Belarus in May, Nicaragua’s foreign minister claimed the scheme was still running and he indicated that Belarus could become involved with it somehow. No firm commitment from Belarus has materialised, to date. (In 2014, Belarus’s then-foreign minister expressed an interest in supplying machinery for the project.)
Regarding the prospect of a Nicaraguan Canal, Bockmann does not mince her words. The plan is “absolute rubbish”, she says, pointing out the lack of progress on the concept over many years.
But are there any alternatives? It’s worth noting that the existing Panama Canal is an extraordinary feat of engineering. “It’s quite incredible,” says Julian Bommer, a professor of civil engineering at Imperial College London in the UK. “These container ships fit into the locks like a glove, with inches to spare either side.”
