Community leader seeks ban on Christmas boat lights at La Parguera
Lajas community leader Jorge Echevarría Morales asked the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources and federal agencies to forbid owners of houseboats at La Parguera from lighting Christmas lights to protect the bioluminescence of the bay.
2024-12-03 12:08:09 - VI News Staff
“For years, we have asked residents and visitors in the town of La Parguera to help protect the unique resource we have, such as the presence of the red mangrove and the unicellular dinoflagellate organism, responsible for light or bioluminescence in places like La Parguera,” the community leader said. “The lighting done every year has no environmental benefit whatsoever and goes against the protection of the ecosystem, requiring certain physical, chemical, biological and ecological conditions that have to exist for the phenomenon of bioluminescence to occur, as occurs in Mosquito Bay in Vieques, Moncio José in Lajas and Laguna Grande in Fajardo.”
Every year, Echevarría Morales said, “unscrupulous people sponsor not only the lighting of illegal boats in most houses in violation of the laws but use the practice of holding a procession or parades of boats adorned with lights, which exacerbates the light pollution problem and deteriorates the bioluminescence capacity unique in that tourism sector.”