Environmentalists take governor to court 2/3/2010 Coalition files suit to restore nature reserve status for endangered leatherback turtle nesting grounds.

A group of environmentalists are trying to convince a Puerto Rican court to overturn a government decree that seeks to open up an important wildlife reserve to large-scale development projects.

Members of the Coalición Pro Corredor Ecológico, a group of environmental activists and organizations, filed for an injunction on Jan. 25 against an executive order issued last year by Gov. Luis Fortuño to strip the island´s Northeastern Ecological Corridor, the more than 3,000 hectare-area (7,400-acre) area in northeastern Puerto Rico, of its nature reserve status.

The Ecological Corridor is home to endangered species, from pelicans to manatees, and is a major nesting site for the leatherback turtles, which is critically endangered. Fortuño´s order would open the area to tourism and real estate development.

“We´re going to the courts so they ensure the respect of for the constitutional mandate on the best conservation and use of natural resources for the benefit of the citizenry, which has been violated by Gov. Fortuño after he became the first leader in our history to eliminate a natural reserve,” said Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera, one of the plaintiffs and head of the Initiative for Sustainable Development organization, in a Feb. 1 statement.

Camilla Feibelman, coordinator of the Sierra Club, an affiliate of the local coalition, said authorities that supported stripping the area of its protected status falsely stated that no scientific research had been conducted to rationalize its designation as a nature reserve.

“This is completely false,” she said. “Since the 1970s, federal and state agencies, environmental organizations ... have been doing studies to do just this.” —Latinamerica Press.