Puerto Rican preserve feels heat

CARIBBEAN NATIONAL FOREST, Puerto Rico —

Its name comes from the Taino word for "The White Land," the cloud forest where the ancient Indians came to worship their gods.

Little changed since Columbus first sighted the island. It contains the largest remaining spread of primary-growth foliage on the island, a chatter-filled home to the endangered Puerto Rican parrot and the Puerto Rican boa, the beloved coqui tree frog and dozens of other plant and animal species.

But today, federal officials say, El Yunque is under siege.

Urban sprawl in this rapidly growing U.S. territory of 3.9 million is encroaching on the greenbelt that was supposed to protect the 28,000-acre Caribbean National Forest, bringing with it businesses and housing projects, roads and parking lots to the foothills of the Sierra de Luquillo mountains.

Officials say such development is threatening rainfall in El Yunque, a source of water for 20 percent of the island population. It's introducing alien species to compete with native plants and animals, they say, and marring the once-pristine vistas that draw nearly 1 million visitors annually.

"The regulations are not being observed," said Ariel Lugo, director of the International Institute of Tropical Forestry, a unit of the U.S. Forest Service based in San Juan. "The urge for development, for profit and economic activity is its own agenda."

Anxiety about El Yunque reflects a larger and growing tension in Puerto Rico.

Per-capita income that is less than half that of the U.S. mainland and double-digit unemployment have spurred rapid industrial expansion in the past 50 years.

ANDRES LEIGHTON / AP, 2004 Puerto Rican parrots are pictured at the aviary of the Caribbean National Forest. Researchers estimate 30 to 35 remain in the wild, making the parrot one of the world's 10 most-endangered birds.

But as natural resources and green spaces grow scarce, that growth is running into a nascent environmental movement.

The island Legislature established a greenbelt of agricultural lands to surround the Caribbean National Forest almost 30 years ago. But according to a new report co-authored by Lugo, the consistent approval of variances by government permitting agencies has allowed new construction in most of the 9,300-acre buffer zone.

That report, issued by the U.S. Forest Service, has provoked an outcry here. In San Juan last month, university students dressed as trees, turtles, fish and birds demonstrated outside the governor's mansion for an end to construction around El Yunque.

"Puerto Rico is an island, but the commonwealth government is approaching planning as if it were a continent," says Pablo Cruz, forest supervisor of the Caribbean National Forest. "As if these were unlimited resources."

Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila has declined to halt any of the projects under construction, but he has instructed the island Planning Board to ensure that it is protecting El Yunque.

"I understand that we have some regulations," he said. "So it's a matter of No. 1, reviewing the regulations, and No. 2, whether we really are following them."

As the island delegate to Congress, Acevedo Vila led passage of legislation extending Wild and Scenic River protection to the Rio Mameyes in El Yunque.

Cruz, the forest supervisor, expressed cautious optimism about the new governor's commitment to the rain forest. "It's the agencies below that are harder to get in line," said Cruz, who has worked at the Caribbean National Forest for 13 years.

To hike through El Yunque, 20 miles east of San Juan on the north coast of Puerto Rico, is to stroll back into time, to the island as it was before Spanish settlement. In the cool mists of the cloud forest, the Taino believed the benevolent spirit Yokahu kept watch over the island they called Boriken.

The tall, white-trunked palo colorado tree still spreads a lush canopy over a cacophonous community of parrots and bats, hawks and lizards.

This was the heritage the Legislature wanted to preserve when it directed that the old sugar-cane fields in the seven communities surrounding El Yunque be maintained for agricultural use only.

According to the Forest Service report, regulations to keep the area for agricultural use only have been ineffective.

From 1936 to 1995, the period studied in the report, forest coverage in the greenbelt did increase by 92 percent. But urban development in the same area increased by more than 2,100 percent.

That development has created heat islands, Lugo says, decreasing rainfall in the periphery of the rain forest. It has also introduced non-native animals, from iguanas and mongooses to stray cats and dogs, and plants including impatiens and kudzu, to compete with native species.

And it has brought more human pressure on El Yunque, visible in the increasing amount of garbage left in the reserve.

"The planning board and other government agencies don't understand their roles," Lugo says. "They think they're permitting agencies, not planning agencies. The mentality is that permits have to be granted to keep the economy developing.

"What they're not taking into account is the consequences of what is happening. You build an urbanization, the population is left with traffic, more demand on services, law-enforcement nightmares. Where the quality of life is going to hell, people don't understand it's a result of urban sprawl."