The Reserve consists of mangrove ecosystems, coastal sand dunes, a saline lagoon known as Laguna Las Salinas, open water, and a century-old local community.

[9] The lagoon occupies and area of 347,898 m2 (86 acres)[10] Ecological protection is managed and enforced by the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources.

[11] Eight activities are allowed at the Reserve: scuba diving, boating, fishing, hiking, sun bathing, photography, bird watching and canoeing.

Then, during 2003–2004, the United States Geological Survey, with the support of the Ponce Municipal Government, conducted a hydrology study of Laguna Las Salinas.

The area is bounded in the west by a tourist development, including a hotel, in the north by modern residential compounds, and in the south by the Caribbean Sea.

The Caribbean Sea Marine Extent component includes the waters south of points from Punta Cucharas in the west and Rio Matilde in the east, both in the Ponce mainland, and north of points from Isla de Ratones in the west and Isla Cardona in the east, both islands south of Ponce.

It also includes extensive areas of sand dunes covered by herbaceous vegetation, part of which are gramineous plants.

[26] The Municipality of Ponce recognized the ecological value of the Punta Cucharas natural area and included a Special Plan PL.

This Special Plan intended to facilitate a residential, tourist and commercial development, contingent on the protection of natural resources such as Laguna Salinas and the wetlands to the south of the area and the conversion of PR-2 to an expressway and the construction of parallel service roads.

[27] The Action Program of the Territorial Ordinance Plan (1993) Judicial Ruling known as Ruling JAC 93–0485 in "Municipality of Ponce vs. Government of Puerto Rico", a.k.a., Ponce en Marcha, was a $615,000 yet-to-be-built project in the Hacienda La Matilde area programmed to be finished during the 1996–97 of the Government of Puerto Rico fiscal year.

[45] As a low environmental impact construction project, the plans include no new water, sewer, or electrical lines being brought into the area.