250 FOREST OUTINGS 



FUTURE USE of recreational areas in Puerto Rico will be limited only by 

 their capacity to handle the crowds. Present facilities are taxed, yet it is 

 believed that the 55,000 visitors on public forests in 1938 represent only the 

 beginning of forest use. Ten times more people in proportion to the popu- 

 lation visit national forests in the States. It is conservative, then, to assume 

 that within a few years, visits to forest areas in Puerto Rico should become 

 increasingly popular. Plans call for construction of 18 additional recrea- 

 tional areas during the next 10 years. 



Tourist visits, accelerated by insular government leadership in travel 

 promotion, should not conflict with normal recreational use. Most tourists 

 visit the island during the cooler months when local use is at low ebb. There 

 is every indication that more continentals will visit the island when they 

 become better acquainted with the pleasures offered and the ease of getting 

 to the American Tropics, and when more adequate tourist accommodations 

 are available. Concrete proof of this is given in the first annual report of 

 the Puerto Rican Institute of Tourism, covering the fiscal year ending 

 June 30, 1938, which shows that more than 29,000 visitors were attracted 

 during 1937-38, compared with 14,500 the previous season. An important 

 byproduct of these visits will be the income derived by the island. The 

 institute estimates the daily expenditures of cruise passengers at SI 5. On 

 that basis more than $440,000 was left by the 1937-38 excursionists. 



Tourists are entranced when motoring up the newly built forest highway 

 to the La Mina Recreational Area. Magnificent vistas of mountain and sea 

 unfold with each turn. Winding through depths of luxuriant tropical forests 

 the road passes towering cliffs and misty waterfalls. About one in eight 

 persons using the national forest is from outside the island; practically 

 every foreign country has been represented. 



The paramount objective of the forest program of the insular and 

 Federal Governments is to develop every acre of public land to its highest 

 use so the needs and welfare of a majority of the island population will be 

 served. 



Timber production and watershed protection will be the paramount 

 use of forest land. The aggregate area required to meet the recreational 

 needs of the people will not cover more than approximately 5 percent of 



