The Vieques National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge

National Wildlife Refuge

National Wildlife Refuge is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the world's premiere system of public lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife and plants...

 on the island of Vieques

Vieques, Puerto Rico

Vieques , in full Isla de Vieques, is an island–municipality of Puerto Rico in the northeastern Caribbean, part of an island grouping sometimes known as the Spanish Virgin Islands...

 in the Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

 archipelago. It is part of the Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex.

The refuge contains several ecologically distinct habitats including; beaches, coastal lagoon

Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...

s, mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

 wetland

Wetland

A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....

s, and upland

Highland (geography)

The term highland or upland is used to denote any mountainous region or elevated mountainous plateau. Generally speaking, the term upland tends to be used for ranges of hills, typically up to 500-600m, and highland for ranges of low mountains.The Scottish Highlands refers to the mountainous...

 forested areas. Some of the best examples of sub-tropical dry forest

Puerto Rican dry forests

The Puerto Rican dry forests are a subtropical dry forest ecoregion located in southwestern and eastern Puerto Rico and on the offshore islands. They cover an area of . These forests grow in areas receiving less than of rain annually...

 in the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

 can be found on refuge lands.

The marine environment surrounding the refuge contains coral reef

Coral reef

Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...

s and sea grass beds. The refuge and its surrounding waters are home to at least two plants and eight animals on the Federal endangered species list

Endangered Species Act

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...

 including; the Antillean Manatee

West Indian Manatee

The West Indian Manatee is a manatee, and the largest surviving member of the aquatic mammal order Sirenia . The West Indian Manatee, Trichechus manatus, is a species distinct from the Amazonian Manatee, T. inunguis, and the West African Manatee, T. senegalensis...

 (Trichechus manatus manatus), the Brown Pelican

Brown Pelican

The Brown Pelican is the smallest of the eight species of pelican, although it is a large bird in nearly every other regard. It is in length, weighs from and has a wingspan from .-Range and habits:...

 (Pelecanus occidentalis), and four species of sea turtle

Sea turtle

Sea turtles are marine reptiles that inhabit all of the world's oceans except the Arctic.-Distribution:...

s.

In addition to its ecological value, the refuge contains important resources of archeological and historic significance, legacy of the Taíno

Taíno people

The Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is thought that the seafaring Taínos are relatives of the Arawak people of South America...

 culture and sugarcane

Sugarcane

Sugarcane refers to any of six to 37 species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum . Native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six metres tall...

era.