PLN Cultural Objects Environmental Conditions Monitoring

FAIN: PG-280760-21

Para la Naturaleza, Inc. (San Juan, PR 00902-3554)
Ivonne Sanabria (Project Director: January 2021 to January 2024)

The purchase and training in the use of environmental monitoring equipment, which would be installed in four historic buildings and one off-site storage space. These spaces are located in three different climactic zones on the island of Puerto Rico and house approximately 5,000 historical artifacts and art objects that represent the cultural, agricultural, and industrial history of the island from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, as well as artifacts from the Saladoid, a pre-Columbian Indigenous group. Collections are exhibited throughout the historic buildings to tell the stories of the free workers, enslaved people, and plantation owners that produced sugar cane, coffee, and cornmeal, as well as the prehistoric and Indigenous histories of the region. Archaeological and anthropological researchers and students also use the collection for publications and theses.

The Cultural Objects Environmental Conditions Monitoring focuses on two areas: first, the acquisition of environmental monitoring equipment, to help monitor four historic structures and one off-site storage space, located at three different climatic subdivisions of the island of Puerto Rico: the North coastal, the Northern slopes, and the Southern slopes climate areas. Secondly, the project will contract an environmental preservation specialist to advise and train staff in the implementation of the monitoring devices and data collecting in historic house settings, as well as data analysis and final assessment of conditions.