El Yunque National Forest
El Yunque National Forest, formerly known as the Caribbean National Forest, is a forest located in northeastern Puerto Rico. While there are both temperate and tropical rainforests in other states and territories, it is the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Forest System and the United States Forest Service. El Yunque National Forest is located on the slopes of the Sierra de Luquillo mountains, encompassing more than 28,000 acres of land, making it the largest block of public land in Puerto Rico.
The forest is named after named Pico El Yunque, the second-highest mountain in the Sierra de Luquillo. Other peaks within the national forest are Pico del Este, Pico del Oeste, El Cacique and the highest peak, El Toro, which is the highest point in the national forest and eastern Puerto Rico rising 3,494 feet above sea level.
Ample rainfall a year in some areas, or an average of 120 inches of water up to 240 inches creates a jungle-like setting—lush foliage, crags, waterfalls, and rivers are a frequent sight. The forest has many trails from which the jungle-like territory's flora and fauna can be appreciated. El Yunque forest is also renowned for its unique Taíno petroglyphs. It is said that indigenous people believed that El Yunque was the throne of their chief god Yúcahu, so that it is the Caribbean equivalent to Mount Olympus in Greek mythology.
Naming and etymology
El Yunque is the name of the mountain peak, Pico El Yunque, the name of the forest, and, colloquially on some occasions, the name for the entire Sierra de Luquillo range. El Yunque most likely comes from or relates to the Spanish word yunque, meaning anvil. This name references the relatively high and flat shape of the Sierra de Luquillo range when observed from the north or the south. It is also said that the Spanish name might have been influenced by the native names for the mountain: Yukén or Yuke possibly meaning "white land", and Luquillo or Yukiyu, another name for the spirit or deity Yokahu and also the name of a legendary cacique, Loquillo. It is not known whether the mountain gives its name to the range or vice versa.History
The area of the El Yunque National Forest has been notable since the pre-Columbian era. The forest today is home to several archaeological sites related to the indigenous Taínos, such as the Río Blanco petroglyphs, although no evidence of permanent settlement has been found in the area, which suggests that it was possibly avoided and most likely considered sacred.File:Radar towers atop a mountain at El Yunque rain forest - panoramio.jpg|thumb|Radar towers, such as this one in Pico del Este, installed by the US Navy during the Second World War.The Spanish began the conquest the island of Borinquen in 1493, and gold was soon found in the Fajardo and Blanco Rivers in 1509, which sparked interest in gold mining in the area. By 1513 there were gold mines in both river areas and gold was soon found in other rivers of the mountain range such as the Sabana, Prieto, La Mina, Mameyes, Espíritu Santo and Canóvanas rivers. The period of gold mining in the area, however, ended in 1530 when miners and settlers started being attacked by rebelling Taínos, and the area would not be settled again until the 17th century. The area where the El Portal Rainforest Visitor Center is located used to be the site of a coffee plantation named Hacienda Catalina. Coffee was introduced and cultivated in the slopes of El Yunque in the 1730s but the area remained relatively untouched until the 19th century when the lowland forests were exploited for timber and cut down for the development of agriculture, which attracted the attention of the Spanish Crown. The forest during this time was part of the Crown lands of Puerto Rico, and in 1853, the Spanish government sent foresters from the Inspección de Montes to survey the land. Due to the rapid population growth in the island and the poor farming practices of the impoverished European immigrants of the time, the forest region was formally set aside in 1876 by King Alfonso XII of Spain to preserve the soil and water resources and regulate the timber industry in the region. This makes El Yunque one of the oldest reserves in the Western Hemisphere, only four years younger than Yellowstone National Park.
The Spanish Crown ceded Puerto Rico to the United States in 1898. At the time, most of the original forests in Puerto Rico had been either cut down or burned down, and the highlands of the Sierra de Luquillo contained the last remaining tracts of untouched forest in the island. President Theodore Roosevelt set aside the previous Crown Lands of the El Yunque area, and the Luquillo Forest Reserve was established on January 17, 1903, by the United States General Land Office with. It became a National Forest in 1906 and was renamed the Caribbean National Forest on June 4, 1935. The forest was still used for timber during the First and Second World Wars and several military installations such as radars and communications infrastructure were installed in the forest, particularly on the highest peaks, such as the early-warning radar site installed in Pico El Yunque to observe and protect against possible incursions by German aircraft and submarines.
The Caribbean National Forest was designated an Insular Wildlife Refuge by the US Department of Agriculture in 1946, and reforestation efforts were also established between 1934 and 1948 to revitalize the parts of the forest that had been formerly lost due to human activity. The Luquillo Experimental Forest was established in 1956 to promote scientific research and expand conservation efforts for the critically endangered Puerto Rican parrot and the recently discovered yet endangered elfin woods warbler. Most of the recreational infrastructure was developed in the 1980s, and the field offices were moved to their current location in 1981. The National Science Foundation established El Verde Field Station in 1988 under an agreement with the US Forest Service as a primary site for the Luquillo Long-Term ecological Research to support scientific research of tropical ecosystems due to the occurrence of five out of six of Holdridge's life zones and forest types.
The forest was heavily damaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and Hurricane Georges in 1998, and it is estimated that only 23 individual parrots remained in the wild afterward. Between 2000 and 2002, 35 captive parrots were released into the wild as part of a program to save the critically endangered bird. An executive order signed by President George W. Bush on April 2, 2007, changed the name of the Caribbean National Forest to El Yunque National Forest, better reflecting the cultural and historical feelings of the Puerto Rican people. Hurricanes Irma and Maria caused deforestation, landslides and heavy damage to the forest and its infrastructure in 2017, drastically reducing the Puerto Rican parrot population once again. As of 2020, the population has begun to recover, and the captive population's reproduction rates have also doubled under the supervision of the Fish and Wildlife Service. The Portal Rainforest Visitor Center reopened at the end of 2021, after being reconstructed following Hurricane Maria. El Yunque National Forest today extends over 28,000 acres through the municipalities of Río Grande, Luquillo, Naguabo, Ceiba, Fajardo, Canóvanas, Las Piedras and Juncos.
Climate
Puerto Rico has a tropical climate, specifically a tropical rainforest climate, while higher elevations over 3,000 feet border on a subtropical highland climate. There is no distinct wet or dry season in El Yunque; it rains year-round. The temperature and length of daylight remain fairly constant throughout the year. The average temperature in the summer is 80 °F high and 68 °F low and in the winter 72 °F high and 58 °F low, Temperatures can drop below 50 °F on clear nights during the winter, but never below freezing. All of these factors provide a year-round growing season.Ecology and conservation
Its ecosystem is specifically surveyed by the Management Team of Ecosystems, which is led by Pedro Rios. Due to its location in the northeastern part of Puerto Rico, the incoming trade winds from the Atlantic Ocean bash into the mountains, leading to an excess of rainfall registered at about per year. This process is called orographic lift and accounts for the intense rainfall and constant cloud presence in this mountainous region. This constant cloud cover and persistent winds produced by the adiabatic process of air particles rushing up through the mountainside have affected the morphology of El Yunque, but the most effect has been on the bosque enano or dwarf forest.The forest is home to over 200 species of trees and plants, 16 of which are endemic to the forest. The critically endangered Puerto Rican amazon, with an estimated wild population of 58–80 individuals in the wild, occurred exclusively in this forest until November 19, 2006, when another wild population was released by the Department of Natural Resources in the municipality of Utuado's Río Abajo State Forest.
El Yunque National Forest contains one designated wilderness area, El Toro Wilderness, which is the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Wilderness Preservation System.