Saturday, Augusrt 27, 2022—Estuario’s Water Quality Community Network participated in the Water Quality Monitoring Day of Puerto Rico. The event culminated with a meeting on the banks of the Piedras River in Jardines Metropolitanos, with the community group Guarda Ríos, featuring the participation of CAUCE, Las Curias, Por las Aguas and UPR Bayamón.
The visit was carried out with the intention of opening a space for dialogue and exchange between various community groups organized around environmental justice in the San Juan Bay Estuary watershed. Guarda Ríos, told the story of the group and had the opportunity to share experiences, the strategies of resistance, and to express concerns about the possible channeling of the river.
During the meeting, a tour of the ecological corridor through the riverbank, organized by Guarda Ríos, was carried out with the planting of more than 50 types of native trees. The participants also had the opportunity to walk the river through University Gardens where they managed to connect with the jicotea turtle and different fish, allowing a critical look that seeks to understand the issues of water from the human and the non-human, to understand the interconnection between the two.
The experience shows the need for relationships between the different sectors to claim environmental justice as a fundamental element of the reproduction of life, and water as a vital element to sustain and rethink the relationship with the hydrographic basin of the San Juan Bay Estuary. Nilsa Medina, leader of the community of Las Curias, reflects on the event:
“I want to highlight the importance and gratitude of this call that [ITIAS] made us barely two months ago… first, we had the cartography meeting and from that meeting all this mobilization has come out… there are small initiatives which have been mentioned here, of people grabbing a trimmer and how that is energized and becomes a social movement. The truth is that I am very happy, very grateful to the ITIAS and Estuario, for summoning us, because we will be able to continue summoning other people with this energy and this desire that there is more and more awareness about the protection of our bodies of water. “
