Environmentalists adopt Puerto Rican beach to protect it

An environmentalist group signed an accord with the government over the weekend to officially adopt a beach of high ecological value in Puerto Rico and work to keep it clean while protecting its plants and animals.

Signing the agreement were Natural and Environmental Resources Secretary Carmen Guerrero Perez and the Friends of La Poza del Obispo organization, named after a beach at the town of Arecibo on the island's north shore.

With this contract, which will remain in force for six years, the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, or DRNA, officially acknowledges the organization's volunteer work to protect and preserve La Poza del Obispo Beach, a favorite of bathers and surfers.

The initiative forms part of the Adopt a Beach program, by which "community organizations, private companies, municipalities and other entities can contribute to citizens' quality of life and promote the protection of natural resources and the environment by adopting a beach."

Starting immediately, Friends of La Poza del Obispo will be able to promote clean-up activities and events that will guarantee the best use of the beach, which is also a nesting site for endangered sea turtles.

The volunteers will consequently keep watch for the turtles' arrival and the appearance of their nests, and will seek authorities' help in protecting them when threats are detected that could represent "some environmental infraction. They will also help us carry out reforestation and cleaning projects and establish green recycling stations and the concept of Zero Trash Beaches," Guerrero said.

They will also stop people from using the beach as a dump and will guard the dunes, which are one of the attractions of the beach and its natural defense system, to keep sand from being loaded up and taken away, as well as other illegal practices.

"For Arecibo it's historic that, after rescuing La Poza del Obispo Beach from privatization five years ago, the DRNA now allows us to adopt it," the spokeswoman for Friends of La Poza del Obispo, Luisa M. Aguila Nieves, said.

The beach of La Poza del Obispo (the Bishop's Pool) owes its name to the first Puerto Rican bishop, Juan Alejo de Arizmendi y de la Torre, who in 1785 survived a shipwreck that occurred as he was returning to Puerto Rico from a trip to the Dominican Republic.

The ship capsized off the reefs along the Arecibo coast, and the fact that the bishop survived was considered a miracle by the local inhabitants. EFE

Environmentalists adopt Puerto Rican beach to protect it

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