Toro Negro State Forest
Toro Negro State Forest is one of the 21 forests that make up the public forests system in Puerto Rico. It is also Puerto Rico's highest cloud forest. It is in the Cordillera Central region of the island and covers, of mountains. Toro Negro's mountains have heights reaching up to and include Cerro de Punta, Cerro Jayuya and Cerro Rosa, the three highest peaks in the island. Nested among these mountains is Lake Guineo, the island's highest lake. The forest has of trails, an observation tower, two natural swimming pools, camping and picnic areas, nine rivers, and numerous creeks and waterfalls. The forest spans areas within the municipalities of Ponce, Jayuya, Orocovis, Ciales, and Juana Díaz, and consists of seven non-contiguous tracts of land. The largest contiguous segment of the forest is located in the municipalities of Ponce and Jayuya. Some 40% of the area of Toro Negro State Forest is located in Ponce's Barrio Anón.
When created in 1935 as part of the Caribbean National Forest, the Toro Negro Forest Reserve was managed by the United States government, first via the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration of the Department of the Interior and later through the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture. Then, in 1970, the Federal Government exchanged with the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico the Toro Negro section of the Caribbean National Forest for some forested lands belonging to the Commonwealth and located adjacent to the much larger federal lands at Luquillo National Forest resulting in the creation at Luquillo of the current El Yunque National Forest. In 1970, the Government of Puerto Rico's Departmento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales opened the Toro Negro Forest Reserve as a Commonwealth state forest and renamed it Bosque Estatal de Toro Negro.
History
In 1876, Spanish King Alfonso XII of Spain issued the first proclamation for the creation of forest reserves in Puerto Rico. The land where Toro Negro sits was originally used for coffee plantations until the 1930s when a program of reforestation was commenced.In 1934, those lands were acquired by the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration. The forest started with a total of in 1934. In 1935, of private lands were purchased by the PRRA. The forest was not a separate entity at the time; it was part of the Caribbean National Forest, and was administered by the U.S. Forest Service as the Toro Negro Division of the Caribbean National Forest. Additional lands brought the total size of the Toro Negro purchase that year to, and at least an additional were in the process of being acquired in 1936. Between 1934 and 1945 over 3 million seedlings and approximately 19,000 pounds of seeds were sown on of the forest. Twenty-eight species were planted in twenty-nine different plantations. In 1942, the US Department of the Interior transferred the forest to the United States Department of Agriculture. From 1942 to 1961, it was administered by the US Forest Service. During these years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture continued its acquisition of lands increasing the acreage of Toro Negro.
In 1961, Toro Negro was transferred to the Government of Puerto Rico. The transfer was finalized on 21 May 1962, when the of land that constituted the Toro Negro Unit of the Caribbean National Forest were signed away to the Government of Puerto Rico by the Federal Government. Of these, were exchanged for located adjacent to the Luquillo Unit of the Caribbean National Forest. The remaining were ceded to Puerto Rico's Department of Agriculture for forestry purposes. This resulted in the Toro Negro State Forest. Since 1962, approximately 120 cuerdas have been planted to eucalyptus, mahoe, kadam and Honduran pine. In 1962, Toro Negro had, representing 11.32% of Puerto Rico's state forests. In 1962 the Area Recreacional Doña Juana was added to Toro Negro. In April 1970, a land exchange which included the Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture purchase and transfer of forest lands adjacent to Luquillo Experimental Forest in exchange for the complete transfer of Toro Negro forest lands to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
The lower elevations of Toro Negro used to be important coffee-producing plantations, however, the entire forest is especially critical for water and soil conservation. Today, the amount of tree foliage coverage in the forest ranges from 81% in the moist forest zone to 99% in the lower montane wet forest zone. The forest was named for the Río Toro Negro, one of nine rivers that flow out of the forest, and the name of one of the barrios in the Ciales portion of the forest.
Protected area
Toro Negro is a protected area under the law. The forest has a protected status of "IV" according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature convention. Ecological protection is managed and enforced by the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources.Through the parcelero program, people who were living in the lands being incorporated into the reserve during the federal government land acquisitions of 1935 were allowed to stay in their places when forest protection went into effect.
In January 1999, a bill in the Puerto Rico House of Representatives sought to increase the size of the protected area by unifying the Toro Negro, Guilarte, and Pueblo de Adjuntas State Forests. In a March 2008 study by its International Institute of Tropical Forestry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture classified Toro Negro State Forest as a Commonwealth of Puerto Rico forest of "Status 2", s status it defines as "an area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover and a mandated management plan in operation to maintain a primarily natural state, but which may receive use or management practices that degrade the quality of existing natural communities". As of 2013, there were ongoing governmental initiatives in place to acquire, from private owners, additional lands adjacent to the Toro Negro State Forest to increase the protected area of the forest as well as to create a wildlife forest corridor that would join Toro Negro with the nearby Tres Picachos and Guilarte state forests through plans such as the federal Forest Legacy Areas initiative.