Fishermen in Nicaragua's northern Pacific waters use as many as 40,000 makeshift bombs a week in the illegal blast fishing industry, with disastrous environmental effects, according to Capt. Juan Juárez of the Nicaraguan Navy.

Juárez told The Nica Times that blast fishing, in which fishermen drop homemade bombs into the sea in order to kill fish, is a practice still widely used in Nicaragua's Pacific by small-scale fishermen. The bombs are made in the León province in clandestine workshops, says Juárez, who is stationed in Puerto Corinto, Nicaragua's largest Pacific port.

Naval forces have seized about 300 bombs so far this year while patrolling Pacific waters, he said.

Find out more about Nicaragua's illegal blast fishing industry in an upcoming edition of The Nica Times, an eight-page publication of The Tico Times.