Conservation vs. Construction

Unchecked development has long been Puerto Rico’s biggest environmental threat. On a small island where space is limited and tourists mean money, the territory’s sultry Caribbean beauty has often been its undoing. Big developers and hotel companies regularly eye the country’s lush coastline and pristine beaches in search of the next high-rise condo tower or 18-hole golf course. But, as economically beneficial as tourism might be, its continued expansion could ultimately lead to a law of diminishing returns. If the famed Isla del Encanto (Enchanted Isle) suffers many more reconfigured coastlines or bulldozed palm groves, it will no longer be worth of its illustrious nickname.
Many argue that development – particularly in the tourist sector – has already gone too far. Puerto Rico currently has a higher population density than any of the 50 US states, with an average of 1000 people per square mile. It also supports one of the highest concentrations of roads in the world. Outside of the central mountains, it is rare to drive for more than a mile or two without being engulfed by a housing complex, a shopping mall or a fast-food restaurant, and the islands peripheral coast road is often more redolent of a giant parking lot than a well-ordered highway.
One perennial worry for environmentalists is the flouting of property laws, a factor that regularly sees buildings going up on protected land. Side-stepping protection laws, large hotels properties often merely act as a cover for future subdivisions and within a couple of years you’ll often find a comparatively new resort shuttered up to make way for a new housing estate.
The good news is that grassroots pressure has already begun to yield resultsagainst some of the more politically aligned property developers. In 2007, a proposed condo development known as Costa Serena was indefinitely blocked by community groups in Loiza, near San Juan. If realized, this project would have erected an 880-unit gated community, along with 1350 parking spaces, a casino, tennis courts and a beach club at Pinones on what is currently one of Puerto Rico’s most authentic and undeveloped beaches.
Seen by many as a refreshing antidote to the resort strip of Isla Verde, Pinones is home to Puerto Rico’s largest mangrove habitat and acts as a natural protective barrier against coastal flooding in the area.
Another weighty tourist was similarly stalled a couple of months later in Luquillo, when the Puerto Rican government signed a protection order on a 270-acre parcel of land that had been earmarked by two major hotel chains for a luxury resort. According to the Sierra Club’s recently inaugurated Puerto Rican Chapter, this project would have severely jeopardized an important nesting beach for leatherback turtles and endangered numerous other species in the so-called northeast ecological corridor.
But, as important these hard-won victories may be, they are merely small, prickly skirmishes in an ongoing war. With the government pledging increased tourist numbers throughout 2008, the battle against the bulldozers looks set to continue


«Construction versus Conservation.» Sainsbury, Brendan y Nate Cavalieri. Puerto Rico. 4th Edition. Oakland: Lonely Planet, 2008. 68.