That a country like El Salvador, poor and with many social needs, would embark on an effort to attract so-called bitcoin mining, which demands a huge amount of energy and does not generate large numbers of jobs, is an extravagance that many find hard to digest.
The pain that María Estela Guevara feels over the disappearance of her niece Wendy Martínez remains as intense as it was four years ago, when she learned that the young woman, then 31, had vanished without a trace in eastern El Salvador.
At the school in El Guarumal, a remote village in eastern El Salvador, the children no longer have to walk several kilometers along winding paths to fetch water from wells; they now "harvest" it from the rain that falls on the roofs of their classrooms.
As fisherman Luis Morán walked towards his small boat, which was floating in the water a few meters from the Salvadoran coast, he asked "How can the coral reefs not be damaged with such a warm sea?”
A score of coastal communities in El Salvador are staking their bets on sustainable development as a form of life that does not overexploit natural resources diminished by years of government neglect and a lack of environmental awareness, using instruments ranging from ecological cookstoves to mangrove reforestation.
Salvadoran villager Maria Luz Rodriguez placed the cheese on top of the lasagna she was cooking outdoors, put the pan in her solar oven and glanced at the midday sun to be sure there was enough energy for cooking.
Throughout its history, San Salvador has faced the danger of landslides - mud and rocks that slide down the slopes of the volcano at whose feet the city was founded in 1525.
The San Salvador volcano is a gift of nature for the inhabitants of the capital who live at its foot, a gigantic green lung that gives them oxygen and fresh air. But it is also a curse.
The people of Potrerillos, a village located in northeastern El Salvador, worked hard to achieve something that many doubted they could do: harness the waters of the Carolina River to install a community mini hydroelectric plant, which supplies them with cheap energy.
Ermelinda Lobos's life has improved substantially since she and the rest of the people in her small village, hidden in the mountains of northeastern El Salvador, worked hard to build a mini hydroelectric plant and become self-sufficient in energy.
Central America is an impoverished region rife with gang violence and human trafficking - the third largest crime industry in the world - as a major source of migrants heading towards the United States.
Because the government has never provided them with electricity, indigenous communities in the mountains of northwest Guatemala had no choice but to generate their own energy.
In the stifling heat, Diego Matom takes the bread trays out of the oven and carefully places them on wooden shelves, happy that his business has prospered since his village in northwest Guatemala began to generate its own electricity.
For nearly three decades, several communities in southeastern El Salvador have collectively and efficiently managed the water they consume, but monoculture production and climate change put their water at risk.
Like an octopus, metals mining has been spreading its tentacles throughout Central America and dealing a blow to the region's agriculture and natural ecosystems, according to affected villagers, activists and a new report on the problem.
Salvadoran farmer Lorena Mejía opens an incubator and monitors the temperature of the eggs, which will soon provide her with more birds and eggs as the chickens hatch and grow up.
As he milks his cow, Salvadoran Gilberto Gomez laments that poor harvests, due to excessive rain or drought, practically forced his three children to leave the country and undertake the risky journey, as undocumented migrants, to the United States.
Disconsolate, Alberto Flores piles up on the edge of a road the few bunches of plantains that he managed to save from a crop spoiled by heavy rains that completely flooded his farm in central El Salvador.
In Lilian Gómez’s house, nestled in the mountains of eastern El Salvador, the darkness of the night was barely relieved by the faint, trembling flames of a pair of candles, just like in the houses of her neighbours. Until now.
In Lilian Gómez’s house, nestled in the mountains of eastern El Salvador, the darkness of the night was barely relieved by the faint, trembling flames of a pair of candles, just like in the houses of her neighbours. Until now.
After three hours of paperwork, Katy Rodriguez from El Salvador, who was deported from the United States, finally exited the government's immigration facilities together with her young son and embraced family members who were waiting outside.