In Chinandega, Nicaragua, women of the Aserradores community crawl through gnarly branches knee-deep in mud, digging for cockles. "Only women come because men don't like to get dirty," says Elena Martinez, who extracts the black molluscs to pay for her children's food and education. Next to their job, the women also do conservation work by replanting and depositing seedlings provided by environmental authorities and NGOs to repopulate the mangrove forest. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES