Puerto Rico's beaches are an integral part of life on the island, and by law, they're one of the few places that are truly public. In practice, the sandy stretch of land where the water meets the shore is one of the island's most contested spaces. Today we're featuring an episode of the podcast La Brega from WNYC Studios and Futuro Studios, a show about Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican experience. On the island, a legal definition dating back to the Spanish colonial period dictates what counts as a beach. But climate change, an influx of new residents and a real estate boom are all threatening legal public access to some of Puerto Rico's most cherished spaces. The debate all comes down to one question: what counts as a beach? You can listen to the rest of La Brega (in English and Spanish) here. They have two full seasons out, which explore the Puerto Rican experience through history and culture. Check it out. This episode was reported by Alana Casanova-Burgess and produced by Ezequiel Rodriguez Andino and Joaquin Cotler, with help from Tasha Sandoval. It was edited by Mark Pagan, Marlon Bishop, and Jenny Lawton and engineered by Joe Plourde. The zona maritimo terrestre was sung as a bolero by Los Rivera Destino. The Planet Money version was produced by Dave Blanchard, fact checked by Sierra Juarez, edited by Keith Romer, and engineered by Brian Jarboe. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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Marizzacaro is a short, energetic woman in her mid sixties.
She lives in Rincon on the west coast of Puerto Rico, and she was born there, too.
Maritza can see the sea from her home, and I met her on a nearby beach.
She and her husband spend a lot of time out on the water.
But a lot of the beaches around Puerto Rico have been changing.
The island's government passed tax incentives to attract people to move there.
And since Hurricane Maria in 2017, a lot of people, especially from the states, have been moving there.
Playa Los Almendros is one of the beaches near Maritzas home.
Rincon is popular with surfers and tourists and endangered sea turtles, and it's one of the places on the island where there's been a lot of displacement of longtime residents as more luxury developments are built.
Right in front of the water is this four story condo building called Condominio Sol y Playa.
It's kind of a sandy color with white balconies that look out on this very calm sea.
When Maria hit, violent waves destroyed the building's beachfront swimming pool.
In fact, the hurricane changed a lot of the coastline.
All around Puerto Rico, beaches became narrower strips of sand, which means that technically, buildings like this one are now closer to the water, or maybe I should say the water is closer to the buildings.
After the hurricane, the condo got permits to rebuild the pool between the building and the beach, and a construction crew broke ground, digging the space for the pool and laying down rebar and concrete in the loose sand for a low wall.
Marice remembers coming to the beach in July of 2021 and seeing that jarring construction site.
She told a friend, one of these days a sea turtle is going to show up trapped in there and everything is going to change.
And the very next day, that is exactly what happened.
One of the endangered hawksbill sea turtles that normally nests here had nowhere else to go except into the construction zone behind the wall.