Threatened, arrested, attacked, and shot, Puerto Rico’s environmental activists have endured a lot while trying to enforce the environmental protection laws they feel the government refuses to enforce. Still, most of them refuse to back down.

As the effects of climate change intensify across the Caribbean, it will only lead to more extreme weather events that will in turn force Puerto Ricans out of the places they once considered “safe” and make many reconsider their life plans.

The tour through the mountains offers Puerto Rico’s most emblematic natural views, while reflecting government abandonment, the slow pace of post-Hurricane María reconstruction, and the urgency of funds for a new management plan.

During the last few decades, illegal construction projects have encroached on Puerto Rico’s beautiful beaches, leading to the destruction of mangrove forests that protect the coastline from storms and rising sea levels.

On Saturday, hundreds of activists flooded Playa Almendros in Rincón, Puerto Rico to complete the demolition of a wall that was illegally built too close to the beach by a condo developer.

On Wednesday, Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural and Environmental Resources ordered a developer that built illegally built on top of Cueva Las Golondrinas in Aguadilla must restore the area impacted by the construction.

With miles of beaches and lush rainforest, Puerto Rico is often touted as a paradise for vacationers. But for the people who live there, rampant development and the worsening effects of climate change have bred a sense of ecological anxiety that drives many to fight for the environment.

A judge in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico has ordered the demolition of two illegal structures built on top of Cueva Las Golondrinas after ruling that the lawsuit filed by the municipality against Aguadilla Pier Corporation has merit.

Human rights groups and activists are demanding that Puerto Rican and U.S. authorities launch an investigation into the shooting of an environmental activist by private security personnel in the coastal town of Aguadilla on Sunday.

Fed up with the slow government response, Puerto Ricans in beach towns along the western coast have set up encampments to demand action be taken to stop illegal construction from further destroying the environment.

On Thursday, private businesses used heavy machinery to block the public access path to Cueva del Indio, a Taíno historical site on Puerto Rico’s northern coast, which had been cleared by activists in mid-October.

Faced with a slow response from the federal and local governments, activists took matters into their own hands on Sunday by tearing down illegal construction blocking the public entrance into the Cueva del Indio Taíno historical site.

Far from slowing the pace of construction on Puerto Rico’s coasts to address climate change, as experts have requested, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi’s administration hit the accelerator to approve construction permits along the coasts.

A federal environmental agency refuses to hold public hearings in Puerto Rico on dangerous amendments to the regulations on coal waste management.

The situation, which also affects agriculture, threatens to escalate in the coming months due to the negligence by the three countries’ governments to lay down guidelines and maintain infrastructure.

A study of negligence in water management.

Thirteen years later, not much has happened.

Puerto Rico has been smelling and breathing diesel ever since Hurricane María hit.