美国国家公共电台 NPR After Hurricane's Wrath, Puerto Rico's Green Forests Turn Bare Brown

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

The once-green hillsides of Puerto Rico are now brown. Hurricane Maria stripped bare the lush forests of the island. While it may look depressing in the near term, NPR's John Burnett reports the forests will likely recover.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE 1: A laborer 2 named Angel Ramos (ph) used to gather mango and avocado that grew wild in the hills above the city of Cayey. The woods were verdant 3. They smelled of fecundity 4, and they made him feel part of creation. And then the hurricane came.

ANGEL RAMOS: (Through interpreter) I climbed up to see what the mountain looks like - the sadness. I see the uprooted 5 trees, the naked limbs. It makes you want to cry when you see it. How it's destroyed - it's torturous 6 to look at.

BURNETT: The site is distressing 7. Puerto Rico's trees are spectacular - or they were. The African tulip tree with its fiery 8, orange-red, cup-shaped flowers, majestic 9 ceiba trees, giant ficus trees with their woody vines. The storm obliterated 10 the island's vegetation temporarily. Don't despair, says a distinguished 11 tropical ecologist tramping up a hill in the heat.

ARIEL LUGO: I guess we want to go straight up because the forest is on the other side.

BURNETT: He is Ariel Lugo - 74 years old, director of the International Institute of Tropical Forestry 12. Part of the USDA Forest Service, Lugo has been studying Puerto Rican forests and the effects of hurricanes for 54 years.

LUGO: The wind was so strong, most leaves could not stay on the trees. So when you ask me who got defoliated, everybody did.

BURNETT: We're standing 13 on a hill in a thousand-acre nature preserve in the heart of San Juan. Looking south, we can clearly see the high rises and shopping centers and sports stadiums.

LUGO: Normally, you don't see the city. Normally, the city doesn't see us. After a hurricane, everything gets exposed.

BURNETT: So will this forest come back?

LUGO: Oh, absolutely. It will be beautiful again - the whole thing.

BURNETT: Through an accident of weather and geography, Puerto Rico has perhaps the best research on the interaction between hurricanes and tropical forests in the Western Hemisphere. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo passed over the eastern third of the island as a strong Category 3. As it happens, since 1943, scientists had been studying the same forests that were lashed 14 by Hugo. What Ariel Lugo and other scientists learned is that regrowth was two to three times as robust 15 and productive as in a healthy forest. The trees race upwards 16 to regain 17 their choice positions in the canopy 18 to photosynthesize the sunlight. The tallest are the victors. But it took the forest three to four years to recover after Hugo. And it probably will for Maria.

LUGO: Every Puerto Rican is aware that this island is looking different. And everybody wants the green island because that's where we love, and what's we are used to.

BURNETT: And what will you tell them?

LUGO: Well, unfortunately, when I'm telling them, it's the same thing that they're telling them when they're waiting for gas and food and water - is be patient. This is going to come back (laughter). But we have to be patient. But it's not going to be long.

BURNETT: Since the defoliation of Puerto Rico, the natural world has been topsy-turvy. Bees are buzzing around, crazily looking for pollen 19 and flowers that were blown away. Confused birds, from the lizard 20 cuckoo to the pearly eyed thrasher to the endangered Puerto Rican parrot, have lost their nests and favorite perches 21. Anole lizards 22 that camouflage 23 themselves in the foliage 24 are now exposed to passing hawks 25. Yet the forest is impatient to reinvent itself. Ariel Lugo stands admiringly under a huge ceiba tree in the institute's lawn that was decapitated by the destructive winds. Nine days later, you can see green sprouting 26 from the tips of intact branches.

LUGO: You see this proliferation of brand-new leaves that are already coming out. And it's amazing to us because it just demonstrates how each species has its own way of coming back.

BURNETT: As he says, nature finds a way to express itself. John Burnett, NPR News, San Juan.