Establishment of a demonstrative planting site in the Laguna Cartagena Wildlife Refuge for habitat restoration efforts through the Guánica Bay/Río Loco Watershed Partnership in Puerto Rico

Background/Question/Methods

In the last 100 years, Puerto Rico's contemporized coffee industry has taken a toll on the island’s already fragile ecosystems - a result of the widespread shift from traditional shaded-coffee to sun-grown coffee practices.  The latter involves planting coffee on cleared land rather than allowing native forest canopy to provide shade for coffee plants. The elimination of forest trees for planting sun-grown coffee eludes a decrease in native wildlife habitat and plant and root mass for retaining soil and water; in this way sun-grown coffee contributes to increased erosion, primarily through runoff.   

The municipality of Guánica is located in the southwest region of the island of Puerto Rico, where during the first five years of their establishment, sun-grown coffee farms contributed to increased local erosion rates by 3.5 tons of soil per hectare per year.  The nearly 151-square-mile Guánica Bay/Rio Loco Watershed is currently emphasized as a critical area for implementation of coastal watershed management.  Afflicted by the high particle load of nutrients and toxic contaminants from sun-grown coffee plantations, the watershed ends in Guánica Bay, threatening its fisheries, seagrass communities, and coral reefs.  As a strategy for mitigating these environmental stresses, a 2.08 acre demonstrative planting site was established in the Laguna Cartagena Wildlife Refuge, through which the watershed was historically connected by way of the Guanica lagoon.  A total of 110 native trees were planted on site, with an additional 87 trees from other species to provide increased biodiversity.  In addition to improving general forest structure and function, these trees were meant to create new habitat and food availability for wildlife species.

Results/Conclusions

Dry forest restoration efforts have shown to directly benefit endangered native birds such as the Puerto Rican Nightjar (Caprimulgus noctitherus) and the Yellow-shouldered blackbird (Agelaius xanthomus), providing nesting and foraging habitat.  Reforestation in the area also creates critical connections between protected areas, rebuilding wildlife corridors that have been lost during forest fragmentation.  

According to a survey of 47 farmers located along the watershed, the USFWS-NRCS inter-agency agreement has been successful in restoring native wildlife habitat, reducing waste, preserving ecosystem balance, improving crop yields and alleviating economic strains.  Specific reevaluation and analysis of the Laguna Cartagena Wildlife Refuge demonstrative planting site is still required.  Results may lead to further studies for the improvement and continuation of this and other conservation efforts.