Over the July 4th holiday weekend, the dune restoration completed by community volunteers and our partners at Para la Naturaleza was disrupted by unknown vandals. Learn more about what happened and how the project will continue.
The DUNAS (Descendants United for Nature, Adaptation, and Sustainability) project suffered an unfortunate set back over the July 4th holiday weekend. The week prior, a group of over 30 dedicated volunteers and community members had installed 250 pieces of wood paneling alongside our partners at Para la Naturaleza. These wood pieces were placed to encourage sand catchment in an effort to rebuild the dunes on Punta Boquillas beach at the Hacienda la Esperanza Nature Reserve in Manati. Sadly, an unknown person(s) removed the wood planks from their positions and strew them across the beach.
“I don't know to what extent it will be possible to find those responsible, but what we want is to make known the magnitude of the damage that is being done. It's not just taking out wooden sticks, but we're using the culture-nature relationship to be able to defend ourselves and protect ourselves,” said DUNAS Principle Investigator Dr. Isabel Rivera Collazo.
The restoration of these dunes is critical to protect not only the archeological heritage and ecological services, but most importantly the human communities adjacent to the dune site from future hurricane impacts.
Knowing the importance of this project, the local communities are organizing once more to re-establish the dune site - stay tuned for more updates.
To support the DUNAS project and learn more, please visit: https://www.climatesciencealliance.org/dunas