Mona (island)
| Mona | ||
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| Waters | Mona Passage , Caribbean Sea | |
| Geographical location | 18 ° 5 ′ N , 67 ° 53 ′ W | |
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| length | 11 km | |
| width | 7 km | |
| surface | 56.783 km² | |
| Highest elevation | 95 m | |
| Residents | 1 biologist <1 inh / km² |
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Mona ( Spanish Isla de Mona ) is an uninhabited island in the Caribbean Sea that belongs to Puerto Rico .
geography
The island is 66 kilometers west of the main island of Puerto Rico and a good 61 kilometers east of the island of Hispaniola in the Mona Passage . Mona has a size of almost 57 km² and has an almost circular shape. The much smaller neighboring island of Monito is located five kilometers northwest of Mona . Together with this she belongs to the Puerto Rican community Mayagüez . The two islands form the municipality ( barrio ) Isla de Mona e Islote Monito . This is the largest and only uninhabited district of Mayagüez.
The island is largely formed by a flat plateau that slopes down to the sea with rocky cliffs. The greatest height of over 90 meters is reached in the northwest, one kilometer inland (south) of Cabo Noroeste . The limestone is crossed by numerous karst caves . As a result, surface water drains quickly, which leads to an arid climate.
The landscape essentially consists of four types:
- Cactus (11.27 km²)
- Highland forests (40.28 km²)
- Wet forest (1.47 km²)
- Coastal forest (3.77 km²)
Sandy beaches have formed in some bays.
Today the island is a nature reserve ("Mona Island Natural Reserve") and is visited by day tourists, of whom a maximum of 70 are allowed to stay on the island at the same time.
history
It is believed that the island was originally settled by the Arawak . The oldest stone tools found are around 5000 years old. Much later, the Taíno are said to have also settled on the island.
On November 19, 1493, the island was discovered by Christopher Columbus on his second trip to Europe, which was named after the island's Taíno name, Ámona . In 1502 Nicolás de Ovando was sent to Mona together with 2000 settlers to watch the revolts of the natives on Hispaniola from there . Due to the small size of the island, there were famines, as the island could not feed the population and only irregular supplies of food came from outside.
In 1508 Juan Ponce de León , the governor of Puerto Rico, visited the island several times to collect food from the Taíno. A rivalry developed between him and Ferdinand II of Aragón in 1509, as both claimed the island as private property. In 1515 the claim to territory finally went to Ferdinand II.
Since then, the island has developed into an important trading hub between Spain and Latin America as well as an important stopover for the shipping of slaves . Ferdinand II offered Taíno, who lived on the island, to choose whether they wanted to work either as fishermen and farm workers or as miners in the extraction of guano and minerals. Most chose the first option, avoiding both the very heavy mining work and paying taxes. Since workers were still needed for the mining work, residents of other islands were brought to Mona - partly voluntarily, partly under duress.
In 1516 the island ownership passed to Cardinal Cisneros and in 1520 to Francisco de Barrionuevo . When in 1524 Bishop Alonso Manso became interested in the riches of Barrionuevo and others, he charged them. Together with numerous Taíno they went into exile in South America and largely left the island as a wasteland.
From 1522 ships from the other sea powers England, France and the Netherlands visited the island to replenish their supplies. It was also repeatedly the base of pirates who captured Spanish galleons from here .
In 1561, at an audience in Santo Domingo, it was proposed to make Mona part of the Spanish colony there. However, this was rejected and the island remained a part of Puerto Rico. In 1583, the Spanish Archbishop of Puerto Rico received permission to Christianize the few remaining indigenous people . Since most of the remaining Taíno had either died, killed by seafarers or fled, the island remained practically uninhabited from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 19th century and was hardly noticed by the colonial authorities.
The commercial mining of bat guano began in the middle of the 19th century and continued until 1927.
With the Treaty of Paris in 1898, Mona was transferred to the United States along with the rest of Puerto Rico . In 1900 the lighthouse designed by Gustave Eiffel was put into operation, which remained in operation until 1976.
On December 22nd, 1919, the island was declared an Insular Forest of Puerto Rico and was therefore protected for the first time.
During Prohibition , the island was a base for smugglers, so in 1923 alcohol worth $ 75,000 was discovered in a cave.
In 1942, during World War II , a German submarine shelled the south coast of the island, which was one of the few German attacks in the Caribbean. From 1945 to 1955 the island was rented to the US Air Force as a training area.
After Mona had been used by campers and as a base for hunting and fishing trips since 1941, a small ranger post was opened for the first time in 1960 to observe the island on behalf of the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources . In 1972, when calls for economic development on the island became louder, the government sent scientists to the island to have it carefully examined. A two-volume report was created on nature, historical sites and available resources. Soon afterwards, plans arose to expand the island into a deep-water port for the reloading of super tankers onto smaller, coastal oil tankers. However, this plan was never implemented.
In recent years, refugees from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, but also China, the Philippines and North Korea have repeatedly tried to use the island as a stopover to flee to Puerto Rico and thus to the USA. Many were and will be captured and immediately deported, but the coastal structure and the dry island climate keep causing deaths.
Infrastructure
There are 6 habitable houses on the island, which are only inhabited by rangers stationed there.
In the southwest of the island there is an FAA -certified runway, which only has a sand runway. Private planes require a special permit for landing.
Most visitors are brought to the island in small yachts, but there is no paved landing stage.
The Mona Island Railway, pulled by a donkey, used to run from the beach to the lighthouse.
