"The Department of the Navy ... has transferred all real property on the eastern end of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, to the administrative jurisdiction of the Department of Interior," the military said Wednesday in a terse statement.

Under the plan, the Navy will continue an environmental cleanup of Vieques, which was used as a bombing and artillery range and where US marines routinely practiced amphibious landings.

The Department of Interior will transform the territory into a wildlife refuge, spending on the project 2.3 million dollars this year alone.

Protests against US military exercises on the island, whose population is about 9,000 people, had been increasing since 1999, when a stray bomb dropped by a US warplane killed a Puerto Rican guard.

Conscious of likely political implications of the unrest, President George W. Bush promised in 2001 that the Pentagon would withdraw from Vieques by May of 2003.

That same year, the movement for a Navy-free Vieques scored another victory when 68 percent of the islanders voted in a non-binding referendum for the Navy's departure.

Speaking at a rally marking the Navy's departure, Puerto Rico Governor Sila Calderon said the event marked the end of an era.

"Its people have sacrificed themselves for decades," said the governor, who was greeted by cheers and loud applause from the islanders. "We should wait no longer to do them justice."

An even bigger celebration is scheduled on the island for Thursday.

US civil rights leader and Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton, who spent three months in prison in 2001 for trespassing on Navy property during one of the protests, will be one of the guests of honor.

SPACE.WIRE