Puerto Rico: 750,000 trees to be planted against natural disasters
Environment — di Lorenzo Brenna
The Caribbean island has launched an ambitious reforestation project to protect the territory from hurricanes and floods.
Puerto Rico: 750,000 trees to be planted against natural disasters
The Caribbean island has launched an ambitious reforestation project to protect the territory from hurricanes and floods.
For centuries Puerto Rico was a single lush expanse of green, then the arrival of Spanish colonisers literally stripped the island through massive deforestation, as happened in many other parts of the Caribbean. Eighty years ago, barely 6 per cent of the national territory was covered by trees, but today some of the island's ancient abundance is returning thanks to numerous reforestation efforts.
Restoring resilience
Puerto Rico's forests also bore the brunt of hurricanes Irma and Maria, which within the space of a few weeks in September 2017 caused devastation and thousands of deaths. "We lost over 31 million trees during both hurricanes," said Fernando Lloveras, director of Puerto Rican NGO Para la Naturaleza (Pln). "One of the things we understood immediately is that ecological recovery was a kind of inspiration for human recovery." Restoring the forests would also help improve Puerto Rico's resilience, making it less exposed to the violence of extreme weather events which, due to climate change, are now increasingly frequent.
Puerto Rico: green and protected
Para la Naturaleza has begun work towards the ambitious goal of planting 750,000 trees of native and endemic species and ensuring that 33 per cent of Puerto Rican territory is protected by 2033. The reforestation work is now under way in Comerío, a town located in the central region of the island, thanks to the commitment of students from the Juana Colón public school. The students are studying natural sciences in the classroom while simultaneously bringing a forest to life within the school grounds, planting trees to retain sediment and prevent erosion, in anticipation of future flooding.
Hoy sembramos 150 árboles nativos en la cordillera Sabana Alta, en Cabo Rojo, con la ayuda de nuestros voluntarios y voluntarias 👏.
A gift to the Puerto Ricans of tomorrow
Restoring broken ecological mechanisms generates a series of positive knock-on effects for the entire ecosystem; planting native trees also entails the return of wildlife to the area. It is a gradual process, and bringing the island's forests back to their former glory takes a great deal of time. "The native and endemic species of the Caribbean grow slowly," explained Manuel Sepúlveda Vázquez, coordinator of Para la Naturaleza. "The entire process could take anywhere from a century to 150 years — we won't see the results of our work, my children won't see them. But my grandchildren might."
WATCH: Puerto Rico Planting 750,000 Trees to Defend Land From Natural Disasters ow.ly/NhXN30m1mu1
Back to the future of forests
The vision behind the major reforestation effort supported by the Puerto Rican organisation is therefore not to restore the forests destroyed by last year's hurricanes, but to make them resemble what they were before the arrival of the colonisers. For this reason, the decision was made to plant exclusively local species, such as the balata (Manilkara bidentata), which grows very slowly but is renowned for its extraordinarily strong wood that sinks in water.