Salva Tres Palmas - Free Screening

The 2009 Rincón International Film Festival is taking place this week in Rincón, PR. 60 films were selected from over 350 submissions and are being screened around Rincón from April 28 - May 3.

Salva Tres Palmas - The Film is being shown on Sunday, May 3 at 7pm in Rincón's town plaza. This screening is FREE and open to the public.

Salva Tres Palmas tells the story of the Surfrider Foundation campaign and the resulting environmental victory that gave life to the Tres Palmas Marine Reserve, the first marine reserve on the main island of Puerto Rico. Tres Palmas has earned a global reputation for its "giant" surfing waves and for possessing one of the healthiest Elkhorn coral reef colonies throughout the Caribbean. This coral has a vital ecological importance to the shores of Rincón, the health of the sea and the species that inhabit it.

The Film Festival is being sponsored in part by the Tourism Association of Rincón and Porta del Sol along with a variety of local merchants including the Secret Garden Art Gallery, the Shipwreck Bar & Grill, and Uncharted Studios.

Butt Why?

Reef Restoration in San Juan Puerto Rico

The San Juan Bay Estuary Program finished placing artificial reef structures earlier this month as part of an environmental-restoration initiative. The $138,000 restoration project consists of placing cement reef-replication modules (known as Taíno reefs) to replace coral-reef habitat lost as a result of the 1994 grounding of the barge Morris J. Berman, which spilled approximately 925,000 gallons of oil into the waters and beaches of San Juan. “The artificial reefs serve as a magnet to submarine life. Later, we will manually add natural coral reefs to further populate the area,” said San Juan Bay Estuary Program Executive Director Javier Laureano. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, National Park Service and the local Department of Natural & Environmental Resources are the natural resource trustees in charge of restoring the balance of the injured ecosystem. In 2000, the parties reached an agreement to undertake three restoration projects, one of which was coral reefs. A Taíno Reef in San Juan “Tourists and citizens alike will be able to enjoy the coral reef landscape. We have set up an educative exhibition at Condado Beach. With a trail map and basic snorkeling equipment, visitors can enjoy the scenery in the Condado Lagoon. On the other hand, to take a look in Escambrón Beach, visitors need more experience as it is deeper and requires scuba-diving equipment,” Laureano said. For more information, check out the Berman Restoration Projects Annual Report