Reserva Natural Punta Cucharas (Punta Cucharas Nature Reserve) is a nature reserve in Barrio Canas, Ponce, Puerto Rico.[5] It consists of both a land area component as well as an offshore marine area.[6] The land component has an area of 698 cuerdas (678 acres)[7] while the marine component has an expanse of 3,516 cuerdas (3,415 acres),[8] for a total area of 4,214 cuerdas (4,093 acres). The Reserve consists of mangrove ecosystems, coastal sand dunes, a salinelagoon known as Laguna Las Salinas, open water, and a century-old local community.[9] The lagoon occupies and area of 347,898 m2 (86 acres)[10] Ecological protection is managed and enforced by the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources.[11] Eight activities are allowed at the Reserve: scuba diving, boating, fishing, hiking, sun bathing, photography, bird watching and canoeing. Activities prohibited are: Camping, crabbing/trapping, horseback riding, water crafting, and hunting. Pets, ATVs, and fireplaces are also prohibited.[12]
History
In 2001, the Puerto Rico Ornithology Society started promoting the conservation of the Las Cucharas area and proposed it as an Important Area for the Conservation of Birds. Then, during 2003–2004, the United States Geological Survey, with the support of the Ponce Municipal Government, conducted a hydrology study of Laguna Las Salinas.[13] In June 2004, the Integrated Planning Area of the Natural Patrimony Division of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources of Puerto Rico (DRNA) issued a report on the natural value of the Punta Cucharas area.[14] In 2008, Amigos de La Laguna (Friends of the Lagoon), a local concerned citizens group, issued a press release showing the impact that construction of the Gasoducto del Norte was to have on the lagoon. In August 2008, the Legislature of Puerto Rico passed Law 227 designating the Punta Cucharas natural area as a nature reserve and creating the Punta Cucharas Nature Reserve using, among others, the June 2004 DRNA report.[15] On 9 August 2008, Punta Cucharas became a protected area under the law.[16][17]
Location and size
The area is located in the coastal and the subcoastal zones of the southern end of Barrio Canas. The area is bounded in the west by a tourist development, including a hotel, in the north by modern residential compounds, and in the south by the Caribbean Sea.[18] It includes all the land southeast of Road PR-2 in Barrio Canas and the marine component of Isla de Ratones and Isla Cardona. The Caribbean Sea Marine Extent component includes the waters south of points from Punta Cucharas in the west and Rio Matilde in the east, both in the Ponce mainland, and north of points from Isla de Ratones in the west and Isla Cardona in the east, both islands south of Ponce.[19][20] Isla de Ratones and Isla Cardona are both included in the Punta Cucharas Nature Reserve.[21][22]
It consists of a salt water lagoon known as Laguna Salinas (Salinas Lagoon) that measures 347,898 square meters, as well as forestland systems of mangroves and other coastal forests, and different types of estuary and marshy wetlands. It also includes extensive areas of sand dunes covered by herbaceous vegetation, part of which are gramineous plants.[23] The Reserve's total area is 698 cuerdas.[24][25] The Salinas Lagoon has a mangrove that expands about 37 acres.[26]
Ecological value
The Municipality of Ponce recognized the ecological value of the Punta Cucharas natural area and included a Special Plan PL. E. 2, on La Matilde Area (the Area that includes the Punta Cuchara area) in its Territorial Plan (Integral Review effective on 23 December 2003), in its Ordination Regulations component. This Special Plan intended to facilitate a residential, tourist and commercial development, contingent on the protection of natural resources such as Laguna Salinas and the wetlands to the south of the area and the conversion of PR-2 to an expressway and the construction of parallel service roads. Among the objectives of the Municipality of Ponce development were the establishment of a protection zone for wetlands and the Laguna Salinas.[27]
The Action Program of the Territorial Ordinance Plan (1993) Judicial Ruling known as Ruling JAC 93–0485 in "Municipality of Ponce vs. Government of Puerto Rico", a.k.a., Ponce en Marcha, was a $615,000 yet-to-be-built project in the Hacienda La Matilde area programmed to be finished during the 1996–97 of the Government of Puerto Rico fiscal year. However, "recognizing the great ecological value of the Punta Cucharas ecosystem, the Territorial Ordinance Plan of the Municipality of Ponce sought to protect the Punta Cucharas area, identifying it as a "high interest" ecotourism area.[28]
Shoreline geology and habitats
The shoreline habitat consists of exposed mangroves, mixed sand and gravel beaches, and fine grained sandy beaches. The Reserve wildlife consists of wading birds and shore birds.[29]
Flora and fauna
The Reserve has 148 flora species, 56 bird species (including both resident or migratory species), five mammal species, nine reptile species, five amphibians, and six fish species.[30]
There are 56 species identified of which six are endemic, 44 are resident, five are migratory and one is introduced.[35] The following table lists a sampling of them.
The June 2004 DRNA study warned that due to the lack of surveillance and the easy access that several roads provide to the area, it had become a common practice to use the area as a clandestine junk yard for motor vehicles and other refuse. The report suggested strategies for the management, cleaning, reforestation and conservation of the area.[41] Several groups, including civic, environmental, and church groups, interested in the conservation of the Salinas Lagoon as part of the Punta Cucharas natural area have participated in cleaning campaigns for the removal of junk with the collaboration of the Municipality of Ponce. The DRNA also took steps to reforest the area.[42] In 2013, some vandals used the area for dumping construction refuse, a practice that carries a fine of $5,000.[43]
Legal efforts
As an additional vehicle to preserve the area, the government of Puerto Rico included Punta Cucharas as a natural reserve under the Natural Patrimony Program created by Act No. 150 of August 4, 1988, known as the "Puerto Rico Natural Patrimony Program Act."[44]
Facilities improvements
In October 2012, the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources published a 54-page environmental impact evaluation with numerous appendixes. In it, the DRNA proposed relocating the existing main vehicular entrance and building the necessary entryway and signing, making improvements to the existing road, building gazebos for group picnics and relaxation plus a gazebo for nature talks, construction a floating dock for kayaks, creation of an additional dock for ondock-fishing, erecting an observation tower and building a restaurant, a boat ramp, and bathroom facilities (compost toilets). The development area would cover 283 cuerdas (275 acres).[45] As a low environmental impact construction project, the plans include no new water, sewer, or electrical lines being brought into the area. The cost was estimated at $1.2 million.[46]
^Protected Natural Areas in Puerto Rico. (Large Map) William A. Gould, Maya Quiñones, Mariano Solórzano, Waldemar Alcobas, and Caryl Alarcón. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry. PR Gap Analysis Project. Accessed 8 June 2016.
^Protected Natural Areas in Puerto Rico. (Large Map) William A. Gould, Maya Quiñones, Mariano Solórzano, Waldemar Alcobas, and Caryl Alarcón. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry. PR Gap Analysis Project. Accessed 8 June 2016.
^Protected Natural Areas in Puerto Rico. (Large Map) William A. Gould, Maya Quiñones, Mariano Solórzano, Waldemar Alcobas, and Caryl Alarcón. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, International Institute of Tropical Forestry. PR Gap Analysis Project. Accessed 8 June 2016.
^Los Reptiles de Puerto Rico. Gobierno de Puerto Rico. Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales. Hojas de Nuestro Ambiente. Publication P-025. February 2008. Accessed 11 June 2016.
^Animales en Peligro de Extincion. Gobierno de Puerto Rico. Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales. Hojas de Nuestro Ambiente. Publication P-014. March 2007. Accessed 11 June 2016.
Dávila, D. and Sustache, J. (2004) Informe sobre el valor natural del Área Natural Punta Cucharas, Barrio Canas, Ponce. Informe, Áreas de Planificación Integral, División de Patrimonio Natural, Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales, Puerto Rico: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico.
Hernández-Delgado, E. A. (2010) Baseline biological characterization of coral reefs at Punta Cucharas Natural Reserve, Ponce, Puerto Rico.
Méndez-Gallardo and Salguero-Faría (2008) Puerto Rico chapter. In: Important Bird Areas in the Caribbean: key sites for conservation. Cambridge, UK: BirdLife International. (BirdLife Conservation Series No. 15).
Vásquez Cruz, R., Carrero Morales, C. J., Ramos García, J., Valdés, A. K., Maldonado Arroyo, A. and Pons Cintrón, G. (2011) Informe final del proyecto de monitoreo socio-económico en las Áreas Protegidas Marinas y costeras de Puerto Rico. Reserva Natural Punta Cucharas, Ponce, Puerto Rico. Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios del Litoral, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Mayagüez. Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales de Puerto Rico.
Guide to the Ecological Systems of Puerto Rico. Gary L. Miller and Ariel E. Lugo. United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. International Institute of Tropical Forestry. General Technical Report IITF-GTR-35. June 2009.
Hydrologic, water-quality, and biological assessment of Laguna de Las Salinas, Ponce, Puerto Rico, January 2003-September 2004. Luis R Soler-López, Fernando Gómez-Gómez, and Jesús Rodríguez-Martínez. Office of the Mayor of the Municipality of Ponce, PR, and U.S. Geological Survey. Reston, Va. : U.S. Geological Survey. 2005. OCLC62469197