El Junque National Forest is in an area of Puerto Rico that was first exploited by the Spanish for it's lumber and gold.  Later, the Spanish recognized it's value as a natural area and set it aside as a nature preserve.  They began the process of restoring it to a more natural state and that process continues today in the care of the US National Forest service.  It is also a laboratory on the care of a rain forest and research there has been shared and has helped preserve rain forest around the world.  An interesting tidbit a picked up from the orientation movie, there are more plant species in this US national forest that in all the other US national forests combined.

This is another of those places that is hard to document with just one picture from inside.  Because the forest climbs the slopes of several mountains, I chose a picture looking over a great vista that sweeps down to the Atlantic Ocean.