Qualla: Northeast Ecological Corridor

Northeast Ecological Corridor: Introduction

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Luis Villanueva-Cubero, CC BY-SA 3.0. Every spring, leatherback sea turtles haul themselves onto the beaches between Luquillo and Fajardo to lay their eggs in the sand. They have been doing this for millions of years. In the 1990s, developers proposed building two mega-resorts with thousands of residential units and multiple golf courses on the same stretch of coast. What followed was not a quick regulatory decision but a twenty-year fight -- waged by fishermen, students, lawyers, and conservation groups -- that became one of Puerto Rico's defining environmental battles. The Northeast Ecological Corridor Nature Reserve, all 2,970 acres of it, exists today because ordinary people refused to let it be paved over.

Image: Luis Villanueva-Cubero | CC BY-SA 3.0

Northeast Ecological Corridor: Where the Rainforest Meets the Sea

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Coalición Pro CEN, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Corridor stretches from Luquillo's town square to Seven Seas Beach in Fajardo, bounded by Route 3 to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the north. What makes the site extraordinary is not just its size but its ecological compression. Within this strip and the adjacent Las Ca...

Image: Coalición Pro CEN | CC BY-SA 3.0

Northeast Ecological Corridor: Dos Mares, Four Seasons, and the Water They Would Have Consumed

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Luis Villanueva-Cubero, CC BY-SA 3.0. The two proposed developments were enormous. Dos Mares Marriott Resort planned 3,450 residential and tourist units plus two golf courses. San Miguel Four Seasons Resort proposed 1,450 units and two more golf courses. Opponents pointed out that over 80 percent of the proposed unit...

Image: Luis Villanueva-Cubero | CC BY-SA 3.0

Northeast Ecological Corridor: A Coalition Built From the Ground Up

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Coalición Pro CEN, CC BY-SA 3.0. The resistance started at public hearings in 1998, where fishermen's associations, residents, and university professors began exchanging phone numbers. By 2004, more than twenty groups had coalesced into the Coalition for the Northeast Ecological Corridor, formalized in April 200...

Image: Coalición Pro CEN | CC BY-SA 3.0

Northeast Ecological Corridor: Protected, Unprotected, Protected Again

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Coalición Pro CEN, CC BY-SA 3.0. The path to protection was anything but straight. Governor Anibal Acevedo-Vila signed an executive order establishing the nature reserve in April 2008. Governor Luis Fortuno reversed it in October 2009. The Coalition shifted tactics, targeting the public lands within the Corridor...

Image: Coalición Pro CEN | CC BY-SA 3.0