ACTIVISTS SAVE URBAN FOREST FROM DEVELOPERS

 Carmelo Ruiz

(SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO Nov 22 1998) The history of environmental activism in this Caribbean island is full of unfinished struggles and not infrequent defeats. But the ecology movement here scored a major  victory this year by getting the Puerto Rico government to grant protected status to one of the last green areas left in the San Juan metro area.

Activists here celebrate this development as the environmental success story of 1998.

"This is the first time in the history of Puerto Rico's urban explosion that the green prevails over concrete" said University of Puerto Rico (UPR) professor Jose Molinelli in an interview last week. Molinelli, who heads UPR's environmental sciences department, is an outspoken foe of urban sprawl.

The area, known as the Urban Forest (Bosque Urbano), is a 400-acre plot on a hill that towers over the southern edge of San Juan's Rio Piedras ward. It borders to the north with UPR's botanical garden and its agricultural experimental station. These three contiguous areas together take up almost as much space as New York City's Central Park.

"The Urban forest is the last green mountain left in San Juan", said Molinelli. "We need it because trees clean the air, remove harmful gases and dust from the atmosphere, and serve as a natural air conditioning system."

"Besides, they also attenuate the extremes of floods and droughts and reduce urban heat. This is why the Urban Forest is essential to San Juan's infrastructure." 

The professor points out that the area has a great ecological value. It contains a great variety of tree species and serves as a sanctuary for birds, butterflies and amphibians. The Urban Forest is also the source of brooks that feed some of the metro area's most important streams, such as the Piedras river and the Juan Mendez creek.  

According to Molinelli, The city of Los Angeles, which epitomises urban sprawl in the minds of many environmentalists, has green spaces that occupy 46% of its land area. By contrast, San Juan's remaining green areas amount to only 17% of its land area, says the professor.  

Molinelli proposes that the Urban Forest be provided with passive recreation facilities, such as pedestrian pathways, as well as areas for picnics and outdoor concerts.  

"This Forest must be used for peaceful and cost-free recreation, because in Puerto Rico there are too many violent forms of entertainment and too many places where you have to pay to go in", says Wanda Colon, a local resident whose house is right in the Urban Forest.

"The preservation of this forest is a gigantic step in the right direction, but I hope that this project doesn 't become a reserve of trees used to justify the destruction of ecosystems elsewhere", says Juan Rosario, spokesperson of Mision Industrial, a local environmental NGO.

Rosario fears that the government might use the Urban Forest to claim that environmental concerns have been taken care of, and that now urban sprawl can continue elsewhere.

"The environmental movement must not forget about San Juan's mangrove forests and the Pin~ones wetland to the east, which are also threatened by developers", says Rosario.

Professor Molinelli points out that the protection of the Urban Forest has also had a beneficial effect on the island's political scene. In 1997, legislators of all political parties unanimously approved a legislative measure to insure its protection from encroaching development.

However, governor Pedro Rossello vetoed the bill, citing a number of technicalities. In February of 1998, the governor issued an executive order authorising the Forest's protection.

Environmentalists suspect that Rossello undertook these maneuvers in order to claim complete credit for the Forest's preservation.  

The government is currently preparing to expropriate and compensate the private owners and public agencies that own lands in the Urban Forest.