miércoles, 30 de julio de 2008

PUERTO RICO

Puerto Rico's environmental activists gain power

A growing environmental movement is stopping more and more development projects that critics say threaten natural resources.

frobles@MiamiHerald.com

"Friends of the Sea" protest a proposed hotel tourist complex by climbing construction cranes.
RAMON ZAYAS / EL NUEVO DIA
"Friends of the Sea" protest a proposed hotel tourist complex by climbing construction cranes.

Protesters outside Puerto Rico's historic San Geronimo Fort are lying in hammocks, cooking on grills and sleeping in tents while the buzz of construction continues around them.

Developers are building the $300 million Paseo Caribe residential, entertainment and tourist complex -- right beside the tiny fort where Puerto Rico fended off a British attack in 1797 -- despite the dozen tents pitched outside where protesters have remained 24-7 for the past year.

The fight over the Paseo Caribe project is among several across Puerto Rico pitting developers against environmentalists, who say development projects threaten the island's natural resources.

''We are ready to stay here two years or more if necessary,'' said protester Agustín Centeno, an engineer who said he has slept in a tent at the construction site outside San Juan's Condado district for 11 months now. ``We demand these buildings be demolished.''

As developers scramble to build along Puerto Rico's remaining coastline, they are encountering an increasingly sophisticated group of activists who block, or stall, their projects by hiring environmental scientists, by lobbying, by organizing community opposition, or by staging acts of civil disobedience.

The Paseo Caribe project stalled for at least two weeks when one of the island's most well-known and controversial activists, Alberto De Jesús, also known as ''Tito Kayak,'' mounted a construction crane and would not get down, causing delays that Paseo Caribe developer Arturo Madero said cost up to $30 million.

Developers believe they are facing political activists who are against development and capitalism, and are costing Puerto Rico untold millions of dollars as project after project is either scrapped by the government or stalled in the courts.

''They have nothing to do with the environment. They are against development of any kind,'' said Madero.

In the past year, environmentalists have put the brakes on two luxury resorts planned along Puerto Rico's eastern coast, a Marriott hotel expansion, a windmill project and a residential-tourism project that required the bulldozing of mangrove forests.

LIKE GREENPEACE

The protesters say they are Puerto Rico's version of Greenpeace, the front line against uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources.

But critics have a different view.

''I think it's a movement to destabilize the country,'' said Julián Alvarez, president of the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce. ``We are trying to bring economic development to Puerto Rico, and there are images of people climbing cranes that do a lot of damage. If you really love Puerto Rico, you don't do those things.''

Environmental activists oppose Paseo Caribe because they say it will block access to a historic fort and is being built on public land. To them, the project illustrates Puerto Rico's rush to build at any environmental price. They say they had to step in because the government allowed too much development close to the shore and failed to follow its own procedures.

In several cases, public pressure succeeded in getting the Puerto Rican government to rescind permits or issue executive orders that canceled projects.

When the government did not respond to complaints of illegal gates that blocked access to a beach, activists tore them down themselves. In another case involving the proposed expansion of the Courtyard Marriott at the beach in Isla Verde, just outside the San Juan airport, activists set up camp outside -- for two years.

VIEQUES

Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, has a long history of environmental activism. Environmentalists aligned with the island's independence movement were among the first to object to the U.S. Navy's presence in Vieques, an island off Puerto Rico's eastern coast that the military used for war-training exercises until 2003.

''You know how the whole world found out about Vieques? When I went to the Statue of Liberty and hung a Puerto Rican flag,'' Kayak said. ``If it wasn't for these kinds of actions, the Navy would still be bombing Vieques.''

The Sierra Club's Camilla Feibelman helped organize community opposition to two sprawling mega-resorts, three golf courses and villas, which the group said threatened the leatherback sea turtle plus 40 more endemic and threatened species at the Northeast Ecological Corridor in Luquillo.

A parade of residents who claimed their water supply was put at risk by planned Four Seasons and Marriott resorts testified before the Puerto Rico legislature last year, and the governor was swamped with 50,000 e-mails, 20,000 postcards, 500 letters and 5,000 drawings from schoolchildren.

`WHAT IT TAKES'

''I don't climb cranes, but sometimes that's what it takes to get attention,'' said Luis Jorge Rivera, an environmental scientist who fought the Luquillo project in eastern Puerto Rico until Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá stopped it by declaring the land a nature reserve.

``Some people call them extremists. If they act that way, it's because they are reacting to extremes.''

Feibelman, Rivera, and environmental planning consultant Carmen Guerrero are among the more respected activists on the island, because they use more traditional methods to voice opposition. Guerrero said there are 125 different groups protesting coastal issues in Puerto Rico.

`BIG DIFFERENCE'

''We have no problem with environmentalists. We hire them as part of our projects to make the projects environmentally sustainable,'' said Rafael Rojo, president of Puerto Rico's home builders association. ``But there is a big difference between an environmentalist and an activist. Environmentalism is a science; it's not a religion or something you practice. It's much nicer to take up an environmental cause than say you are against capitalism, this project means someone will get rich, and you don't believe in that.''

Javier Arocha, Puerto Rico's secretary of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, said the environmental movement in Puerto Rico largely grew out of the people's frustration with uncontrolled development.

To the dismay of developers, Puerto Rico's government has increasingly responded to environmental complaints by denying permits or even rescinding ones that were already issued when activists hired experts and documented that some developers submitted fraudulent environmental-impact studies.

''I have seen how the coasts changed, and how these groups grew,'' Arocha said. ``When they make serious proposals in writing, with people looking for alternatives, those are the things I like to work with. Those who come fighting, disrupting with radical protests, well, I separate myself from that.''

Activist Kayak makes no apologies for what he calls ``shark measures.''

''We have to start thinking differently for the future,'' Kayak said. ``I don't know of a world we can all go live in when we finish off with this one.''

No hay comentarios: