Since sovereignty over Puerto Rico passed into U.S. hands in 1898, more than 300 federal and state laws have impacted the management of water, air, rivers, flora, fauna and other natural resources of the archipelago, with eminently positive effects on environmental conservation.
Although the findings of the doctoral dissertation of the Professor of Law Luis Anibal Aviles Pagan could appear as an obvious conclusion regarding the historical legislation on environmental matters, the former president of the Governing Board of the Electric Power Authority He stressed that this was an angle that had not been systematically studied.
The dissertationpresented in March to the Department of Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Puerto Rico at Rio PiedrasHe also presented an analysis of the periods that were historically most favorable for the approval of environmental legislation, based on the parties that controlled the state and federal governments.
“I found a fairly prevalent attitude in Puerto Rico, on the part of so-called environmentalists, that the government does not protect the environment. And I said, where do they get this from? The air and water are cleaner today than they were 50 years ago. The Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act (both federal statutes) have worked. The air and water in Puerto Rico is cleaner than in Europe. “I wanted to try to prove statistically, if possible, that environmental laws protect the environment. The answer is yes, but the statistical analysis had never been done,” Avilés Pagán said.
In the dissertation, of more than 300 pages, organized into five chapters, Avilés Pagán presents the results of remote sensing analysis to identify the characteristics of land cover present since 2000. Based on a mathematical equation that incorporated the number of environmental laws passed, economic growth indicators, and temperature and precipitation data, the study modeled the correlation with the volume of vegetation cover in the country, reflecting the positive effect of the legislation.
Between 2000 and 2016 – the period covered by the analysis to exclude the effects of Hurricane Maria Since 2017, the index used to calculate the volume of land cover has increased by 7.8%.
Overall, the research found that the bulk of federal environmental laws applicable to Puerto Rico were passed between 1950 and 1990, statutes that focused on protecting coastal ecosystems and preventing pollution. State legislation, meanwhile, was passed mainly after 1990 and focuses on terrestrial ecosystems and natural resource management.
“The research highlights the critical role of the legal framework in environmental conservation, emphasizing the importance of robust laws and dynamic policies in environmental legislation and the need for continuous and adaptive monitoring in ecosystem management,” the document states.
Specifically, Avilés Pagán counted 314 laws – including amendments – approved between 1897 and 2021, of which 276 remain in forceOf the group of environmental statutes in force, 150 are state and the remaining 126 are federal.
As part of the study, the law professor also created a classification system for the laws based on the topics they address: of the statutes, 60 create “socioeconomic incentives” for the use of land and ecosystems, and 59 focus on “resource management,” which, according to Avilés Pagán, reflects a “balance” between promoting economic activity and environmental conservation.
The dissertation, entitled “Puerto Rico’s green rebirth: an examination of the relationship between environmental laws and the vigor of its vegetation since 2000”also sought to use mangrove cover in the Southwest as a case study. However, the analysis faced the limitation of the impacts of Hurricane Maria, which the study describes as the “primary factor” in the net loss of nearly 250 hectares of mangroves in that region since 2016, rather than anthropogenic elements.
Although multiple environmental scandals have made headlines in recent years, particularly in coastal municipalities such as Salinas, Rincón and Aguadilla, Avilés Pagán insisted that these are “isolated” incidents that do not reflect general trends.
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The idea is that these laws can be put together to create a future environmental code that is driven by an ‘ecosystem-based approach’. ”Luis Anibal Aviles
“In my grandparents’ time, people burned trash in their backyards and cut down the woods to plant grass for the cows to eat. These practices no longer occur in Puerto Rico, and it is because environmental laws have changed the paradigm,” said Avilés Pagán, who believes that it is urgent to implement a moratorium on construction on the coasts, as well as to use technology to identify and expose illegal deforestation practices within private properties.
Present the political factor
By comparing environmental legislation with the years in which it was approved, Avilés Pagán found that the party affiliation of the president of the United States was not a statistically significant factor, contrary to what occurred with the groups that controlled the Senate wave Camera federal. When the Democrats controlled both bodies, an average of 2.1 environmental laws were approved per year, in contrast to 0.9 statutes under congresses Republicans.
In Puerto Rico, meanwhile, Avilés Pagán identified that, although the legislatures controlled by the People’s Democratic Party and those dominated by the New Progressive Party They passed virtually the same amount of environmental laws in absolute terms, Senate with the majority of La Pava “was associated with a reduction in state environmental laws.”
The dissertation, in turn, postulates that “the most effective legal measure” for environmental preservation is the creation of protected areas.a mechanism that, in Puerto Rico, It has hardly been used since 2017when it was estimated that 16% of the territory had statutory protections.
For Avilés Pagán, the system of classification of laws that he proposes, based on the ecosystems that each one seeks to conserve, is one of the main contributions of academic research.
“The idea is that these laws can be brought together and create a future environmental code that is driven by an ‘ecosystem-based approach.’ It is part of the work that we want to continue doing,” said Avilés Pagán, who estimates that about a third of the current statutes listed have a “direct impact” on the environment.
Puerto Rico’s green emergence: Examining the relationship between environmental laws and vegetation vigor since 2000