Mona: tesoro del Caribe (2017)

• 85%
• 2017
• Documentary
• Sonia Fritz

Mona island was a ceremonial center for Taino Indians who left pictograms and finger painting on the cave walls. With the Spanish arrival and later with pirate ships, Mona became a food and water supplier. Later between the 19th and 20th century, more than 600 men extracted guano, a fertilizer, from the caves. Presently it is a natural reserve managed by the Natural Resource and Environment Department and a place where on-going research projects are the preservation of the hawksbill turtle and the big iguanas as well as climate change and geology. Also archeologists from Britain are collaborating with local researchers interpreting Taino culture and pictographs; Speleologists from different parts of the world, together with a couple of Puerto Rican specialists, have mapped already more than 200 caves and continue to visit the island annually.