Once again, Puerto Rico is receiving international attention as the island’s El Yunque National Rainforest joins 261 international nature sites chosen to participate in the New 7 Wonders of Nature worldwide campaign. This project lets the global community vote on which locations should become one of the premiere sites on this list. Voting for the semi-finals is entering the final stretch.

The competition is stiff with sites like the Amazon, the Black Forest and the Tree of Life in the running and the island is quite a ways from reaching the finishing line.

El Yunque, though has a few things in its favor such as an ecosystem so complex that it was named one of the original Biosphere Reserves by the United Nations in 1976, more biodiversity than other forest in the United States and it houses five different forests including the rare Dwarf Forest. Of the rainforest’s 240 native tree species, 23 of these species only exist in El Yunque.

And of course, the rainforest houses 13 of the Island’s 17 native tree frog (coquí) species including the “dwarf coquí” one of the smallest frogs on earth.

The polls are officially open and if you’d like to see our rainforest among the 77 semi finalists be sure to cast your vote at www.new7wonders.com before July 7.

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–Alberto Ramos Cordero