Protected Nature Reserve in Puerto Rico
The Northeast Ecological Corridor Nature Reserve (NECNR) (Spanish: "Reserva Natural Corredor Ecológico del Noreste") refers to an area designated as a protected Nature Reserve located on the northeast coast of Puerto Rico, between the municipalities of Luquillo and Fajardo. Specifically, the lands that comprise the NEC are located between Luquillo's town square to the west and Seven Seas Beach to the east, being delineated by PR Route # 3 to its south and the Atlantic Ocean to its north. It was decreed as a protected area by former Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal S. Acevedo-Vilá in April 2008, a decision reversed by Governor Luis G. Fortuño-Burset in October 2009, although he later passed a law in June 2012 re-designated as nature reserve two-thirds of its lands, after intense lobbying and public pressure. Later, in 2013, Governor Alejandro García-Padilla signed a law declaring all lands within the NEC a nature reserve. The area comprises 2,969.64 acres (1201.77 hectares), which include such diverse habitats as forest, wetlands, beaches, coral communities, and a sporadically bioluminescent lagoon. The Corridor is also home to 866 species of flora and fauna, of which 54 are considered critical elements, meaning rare, threatened, endangered and endemic species classified by the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER), some even designated as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). These include, among others, federally endangered species such as the plain pigeon, the snowy plover, the Puerto Rican boa, the hawksbill sea turtle and the West Indian manatee. The beaches along the NEC, which are 8.74 kilometers (5.43 miles) long are important nesting grounds for the leatherback sea turtle ("Dermochelys coriacea"), which starts its nesting season around April each year.
A grassroots campaign started in the late '90s by concerned citizens, and eventually led by Sierra Club's newly formed Puerto Rico Chapter and other member organizations since 2004, had as its goal the preservation of the NEC. These organizations banded together to form the Coalition for the Northeast Ecological Corridor in 2005 in order to better coordinate their efforts, adopting a formal structure in October 2011. The Coalition's members have used an extensive media campaign and lawsuits in order to halt constructions and have the NEC designated as a nature reserve, achieving reserve status for the NEC in 2008 only to have it reversed in 2009. In November 2010 the Puerto Rico Planning Board (PRPB) unveiled its plan for the Grand Northeast Ecological Corridor Reserve Special Planning Area, which according to its designation document would augment the protected area to . Nevertheless, members of the Coalition for the Northeast Ecological Corridor have stated that some of the newly protected areas the PRPB would designate in its 2010 plan are susceptible to flooding, already enjoy protected status, or are already developed, making protection of these areas unnecessary. Meanwhile, the new plan, they contended, would leave unprotected of ecologically sensitive lands precisely where developers had earlier intended to build megaresorts. In January 2012 the Puerto Rico Appeals Court issued a ruling that temporarily barred any Puerto Rican agency from issuing construction permits for proposed projects within the rescinded reserve while the courts issued final verdicts. This ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico shortly thereafter, a decision that turned academic as a law signed in 2012 granted protection to those lands within the NEC that are of public domain (comprising ), or two-thirds of its original designation and another law, signed in 2013, granted nature reserve status to the NEC in its entirety.
Preservation campaign and conservation efforts.
The NEC has been proposed to be designated as a nature reserve by the local and federal governments since 1978, as established in the Puerto Rico Coastal Management Program under the US Coastal Zone Management Act. In 1990, a large part of the NEC was designated as a Coastal Barrier under the US Coastal Barrier Resources Act. In 1992, the PR DNER presented an official designation document to the PR Planning Board in order to designate all the lands within the NEC as a nature reserve. Nevertheless, after the election of 1992, the recently elected government administration of Pedro J. Rosselló-González requested the Planning Board not to approve the designation of the NEC as a nature reserve as it wanted to promote tourism development in the area. The new administration's land use vision for the NEC was approved in the 1996 Northeast Coast Tourism Development Conceptual Plan, which zoned the area to allow for massive residential and tourism developments and golf courses.
Initial efforts.
After the 1996 Northeast Coast Tourism Development Conceptual Plan was approved, two megaresorts were proposed to be constructed in the NEC: (1) Dos Mares Marriott Resort – consisting of 3,450 residential and tourist units, an 18-hole golf course and a 9-hole golf course, among other related facilities; and (2) San Miguel Four Seasons Resort – consisting of 1,450 residential and hotel units and two golf courses, of 18 holes and 9 holes respectively, among other amenities.
The plan's detractors contended that over 80% of the units proposed by both projects were exclusively residential, which seriously undermined the developers' claim that these were tourism projects. They also argued that these projects would result in deforestation, land movement, filling of wetlands, channelization of rivers, and the clearance of coastal vegetation, significantly impacting the species and other living resources that depend on the NEC. They also contended that golf course maintenance practices would include the use of toxic substances such as herbicides, which could affect the water quality of surface, underground, and coastal waters. Further, it was argued that both projects would severely limit public access to the NEC's beaches, public lands and other public natural resources, as well as further depleting the limited water supplies needed by local communities, affecting the quality of life of thousands in the region.
During the 1998 public hearings held by the PR Environmental Quality Board and the PR Planning Board for both projects' environmental impact statements (EIS's) and site permits, respectively, different stakeholders started exchanging contact information in order to collaborate in halting the approval of the project's EIS's and site permits. They considered that the official documents presented by the project's proponents were substantially weak and incomplete. For example, San Miguel Resort's EIS indicated that the NEC's rivers flowed into the "Pacific Ocean", instead of the "Atlantic Ocean". These groups also contended that both EIS's did not consider general public access to the coast nor their significant cumulative environmental impacts, especially towards the already strained water supply in Puerto Rico's northeast coast. The initial NEC campaign's message focused on how the proposed residential and tourism projects were going to: (1) deplete the limited water supplies needed by local communities, affecting the quality of life of thousands of citizens in the eastern region of Puerto Rico; (2) promote more urban sprawl throughout El Yunque National Forest's coastal buffer zone; and (3) severely limit public access to local beaches, public lands and other public natural resources.
In the case of the region's limited water supplies, the Puerto Rican government had recently published the Puerto Rico Water Plan, which indicated that the region already had a water deficit of 3.6 million gallons per day (MGD). Regarding El Yunque's buffer zone, according to a 2004 U.S. Forest Service's International Institute of Tropical Forestry study, 86% of all new urban areas established at El Yunque Special Planning Area between 1985 and 2001 did not comply with current land use zoning regulations, a situation that encouraged the urban sprawl that was eating away El Yunque's coastal buffer zone and enhanced the importance of the only continuous, non-developed, largely forested remaining area in the northeast coast: the Northeast Ecological Corridor. The two proposed projects: Dos Mares and Four Seasons resorts, they argued, would further compromise the ecological integrity of this area since both of projects' developers were requesting land use changes in certain areas to the PR Planning Board; specifically the request was for re-designation from "natural resource conservation" zoning district to "tourism development" zoning district.
In addition, both projects conducted deforestation and land movement activities without the required permits, resulting in changes to the natural patterns of runoff and direct impacts to important ecological zones. Construction of the Phase I of the Dos Mares project (adjacent to the NEC) impacted some tributaries to the Aguas Prietas Lagoon (located within the NEC) and increased sedimentation levels to this irreplaceable water body, where sporadic bioluminescence occurs. Dos Mares' proponents were fined $140,000 for these illegal activities by the PR DNER and United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
Coalition building.
More than 20 different interest groups (fishermen's associations, residents, community groups, business associations, recreationalists, university professors, students, and conservation NGOs, among others) forged in 2004 what came to be known as the Coalition for the Northeast Ecological Corridor. As the Coalition was organizing, the Puerto Rico Chapter of the Sierra Club was authorized by the national charter on February 19, 2005. The Sierra Club provided added capacity in community organization and campaign design and organized a number of workshops in order to formalize the Coalition's strategies and tactics, and the Coalition officially came into existence on April 25, 2005.
The Coalition's main goals include designation of the NEC as a nature reserve with its development activities based on ecotourism and nature tourism. The organizations that originally made up the Coalition were: Ceiba Pro Development Alliance (APRODEC in Spanish), the Association of Professionals and Traders of Fajardo (ACOMPRO in Spanish), the Federation of Fisherpersons of Puerto Rico and Defenders of the Sea, Inc. (FEDEMAR in Spanish), Rosendo Matienzo Cintrón Cultural House, 4H Clubs, Fortuna Community, Defenders of Barrio Juan Martín and the Northeast Ecological Corridor, Allied Interdisciplinary Environmental Groups (GAIA in Spanish), Brotherhood of Eastern Artisans, Protecting Animals in Eastern Puerto Rico (PARE ESTE, Inc.), the Puerto Rico Chapter of Sierra Club, University of Puerto Rico at Carolina Chapter of Internal Tourism; while the Sustainable Development Initiative serves as an advisory group. There are also other private and professional organizations that have joined the coalition efforts, such as the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Planning Society, the Camping Association of Puerto Rico, and the Ecumenical and Interfaith Coalition Puerto Rico. In 2008, the Coalition was recognized with the Miranda Foundation Award for Solidarity.
The Coalition also had the support of numerous United States and international conservation NGOs. Their support was through personalized letters directed to local decision-makers, National Action Alerts, small grants for educational materials (brochures), and US press coverage, among others. Entities included: Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, Waterkeeper Alliance, Surfrider Foundation, Coastal Alliance, and World Wildlife Fund. The NEC's campaign was also supported by actors Benicio Del Toro and Edward James Olmos, as well as environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Casa Pueblo founder Alexis Massol-González. They provided their support through official public statements and through personal communications with high-level decision makers in the government of Puerto Rico.
Since 2006 the Coalition for the Northeast Ecological Corridor has held the Leatherback Turtle Festival at the Luquillo Town Square in April each year in order to celebrate the beginning of the leatherback turtle's nesting season. The festival has been used as an education and lobbying venue in order to promote both the importance of protecting this endangered species and its most important nesting place in Northeast Puerto Rico, the NEC.
Legislative and legal action.
Although there were plans to officially establish in the NEC a permanent reserve as well as plans to establish eco-hospices, bicycle trails and access to beaches, a proposed bill that would create a nature reserve (PR Bill 2105 of 2007) would give the government and concerned groups only eighteen months to acquire privately owned lands within the Corridor. In the case that the lands could not be acquired, the natural reserve designation would be rescinded. Considering these amendments to be "poison pills", former Governor Aníbal S. Acevedo-Vilá decided to veto the law and instructed, by means of Executive Order OE-2007-37 on October 4, 2007, the PR Planning Board to establish a nature reserve, edit a draft for the Land Use and Management Plan as well as to delineate the reserve's borders. The PR Planning Board approved in its Resolution No. PU-02-2008-24(23) on February 6, 2008, the limits for the NEC and on April 24, 2008, Governor