THE BEGINING

About 6 years ago I started designing furniture and having it made with local craftsman in Masaya, Nicaragua. We were making furniture that was really very different to what was available in the local market and found that we had a ready market - people looking for authentic furniture that celebrated the beautiful woods that Nicaragua has to offer. -Simplemente Madera-, Simply wood, was born. We started out of a small store in Managua in 2000. The aim was to produce high end, well designed solid wood furniture for the local and export market, adding value to a cottage industry that suffered from a high competetive strangulating local market with little design variety and lots of competition on price.

THE VISION

I had met Eric and Clemente Poncon - owners of Morgans Rock, the previous year and as Simplemente Madera started to develop we realised that we shared a vision for wood and the future of Nicaragua. We all believed that wood was one of the elements that could put Nicaragua as a country back on its feet, that through good stewardship of the existing forest, and brave investment in tropical hardwood plantations combined with the opening up of Nicaragua as a country and a destination  there existed the elements to build a unique high quality wood industry - something that, if carried out well, as well as bringing business and wealth was a great way of preserving the forest and the way of life of the people who live in it.

THE START OF

In 2001 Eric, Clemente and I joined forces and created S.A. - the structure now behind Simplemente Madera.  We wanted to set out our agenda right from the beginning and so with help from the World Wildlife fund our first achievement was to gain Forestry stewardship Council (FSC) certification for 4 of the workshops that work with us.This was a first in Nicaragua and allowed us to put the covetted FSC seal of ¨well managed wood¨on furniture that was used wood from certified sources. Clemente went on to certify the three plantations that he had started in readiness for the the tree extrations and as a committment to the principles of certification and sustainable management.

MORGANS ROCK

Morgans Rock was a dream the Poncon family had been dreaming since they started the plantation on the property in 1997.  I saw it as part of  bringing Nicaragua out of the past and showing the outside world that Nicaragua was very different from the image most people had of it. It was also a chance to celebrate wood and show off Clementes plantations as well as to share a very beautiful part of the world. So Simplemente Madera took on the design of the biggest piece of furniture we have ever made - Morgans Rock!!  We ended up making everything from the lighting to the furniture to the buildings. We were not experts in Hotel design but we knew what we liked and we knew the ground very well.  It took only a year and a half to complete the project, lots of head scratching, sunburn and trips back and forth to our offices in Managua.

COFFEE AND TREES

As Clemente has shown on the la Cumplida farm in Matagalpa northern Nicaragua (and watch out for Morgans rock mountain lodge which we designed) Coffee and tree farming can go hand in hand. Much of northern Nicaragua is covered with coffee farms - they are one of the largest sources of rural employment. Trees can help to smooth the ups and downs of the coffee industry and provide welcome diversification in farm activity and income. Simplemente Madera is now starting to use plantation timber from La Cumplida - the same farm that provides the great coffee you drink at Morgans Rock. As head of Something in one of the industry largest coffee brokers, Eric is putting together and exciting project to strengthen the buffer zone around the Bosawas forest reserve - the largest area of primary forest in central America. With support from international coffee buyers such as Starbucks and Nestle, the project will work with small coffee farmers to the south of the BOSAWAS area, starting an ambitious long term program of tree farming on coffee farmers.

INVESTMENT INTEREST IN NICARAGUA´S PLANTATIONS

Clementes pioneering success at the Morgans Rock, la Cumplida and Eden farm plantations is attracting international investors to look very seriously at Nicaragua as an ideal country to grow hardwood. Exciting plans for 2006 involve large expansion of the plantation area as well as investment in small diameter lumber processing equipment.