Castro the Conservationist? By Default or Design, Cuba Largely Pristine
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
August 4, 2006
Will Cuban President Fidel Castro be remembered primarily as a man of
the people, an authoritarian tyrant—or a conservationist?
Castro handed power to his brother last week to undergo emergency
intestinal surgery. His health remains uncertain, fueling rampant
speculation about his legacy.
Some experts say his environmental policies may be among his greatest
achievements.
Though Cuba is economically destitute, it has the richest biodiversity
in the Caribbean. Resorts blanket many of its neighbors, but Cuba
remains largely undeveloped, with large tracts of untouched rain forest
and unspoiled reefs (map of Cuba).
The country has signed numerous international conservation treaties and
set aside vast areas of land for government protection.
But others say Cuba's economic underdevelopment has played just as large
a role.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union—its main financial
benefactor—Cuba has had to rely mostly on its own limited resources. It
has embraced organic farming and low-energy agriculture because it can't
afford to do anything else.
And once Castro is gone, the experts say, a boom in tourism and foreign
investment could destroy Cuba's pristine landscapes.
Eco-Legacy
"I think the Cuban government can take a substantial amount of credit
for landscape, flora, and fauna preservation," said Jennifer Gebelein, a
professor at Florida International University in Miami who studies
environmental issues in Cuba.
More than 20 percent of Cuba's land is under some form of government
protection. The island's wetlands have been largely shielded from
pesticide runoff that has destroyed similar areas in other countries.
And since Castro seized power in 1959, logging has slowed significantly.
Forest cover has increased from 14 percent in 1956 to about 21 percent
today.
In addition, the more than 4,000 smaller islands surrounding the main
island are important refuges for endangered species. The coastline and
mangrove archipelagos are breeding grounds for some 750 species of fish
and 3,000 other marine organisms.
"Because Cuba's tourist industry has not developed quickly in regard to
reef exploitation, the reefs have been spared the fate of Florida's
reefs, for example," Gebelein said.
At about 1.5 million acres (600,000 hectares), the Ciénaga de Zapata
Biosphere Reserve is Cuba's largest protected area and has been
designated a "Wetland of International Importance" by the Ramsas
Convention on Wetlands in 1971.
"The Zapata Swamp is the Caribbean's largest and most important
wetland," said Jim Barborak, who is based in San Pedro, Costa Rica, and
heads the protected areas and conservation corridors program for
Conservation International.
Jewel of the Caribbean
Originally, Cuba was in the Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean Sea.
Continental drift slowly brought the island into the Caribbean some 100
million years ago, and an astonishing variety of life emerged.
"Cuba has tremendous biological diversity," Barborak said. "The levels
of plant endemism—unique species limited to Cuba—is particularly high,
especially in highland ecosystems in eastern Cuba."
More than half of Cuba's plants and animals, and more than 80 percent of
its reptiles and amphibians, are unique to the island.
Endemic birds include the Cuban trogon, the Cuban tody, and the Cuban
pygmy owl. The world's smallest bird, the bee hummingbird—which weighs
less than a U.S. penny—is found there.
"Important populations of many North American migratory birds, whose
declining populations require international action to conserve both
breeding and wintering grounds, spend much of the year in Cuba,"
Barborak said.
Cuba is only one of two nations with a primitive mammal known as a
solenodon, a foot-long (0.3-meter-long) shrewlike creature.
The island also has a great diversity of giant lizards, crocodiles, and
tortoises.
Intellectual Infrastructure
A key player in Cuba's green movement has been Guillermo García Frías,
one of five original "comandantes" of the 1959 Cuban revolution.
A nature lover with strong ties to Castro, García has pushed for a
strong environmental ethic for a generation of scientists and government
officials.
"Comandante García's enthusiasm for nature conservation has been
critical to the successful development of a conservation infrastructure
in Cuba," said Mary Pearl, president of the Wildlife Trust in New York City.
Cubans are leaders in biological research, with thousands of graduates
from the country's ten universities and institutes devoted to work in
ecology.
"The country has the best intellectual infrastructure for wildlife
conservation in the Caribbean," Pearl said.
Students in every department at the University of Havana, for example,
have had the opportunity to share a bonding experience by living in an
impoverished fishing village while working to protect marine turtles.
"As a result, many of Cuba's leaders in all spheres have had a common
experience reconciling poverty alleviation and nature conservation,"
Pearl said. "It is not surprising that this has left a legacy of concern
for nature, despite the country's economic challenges."
Embargo Woes
But Cuba has earned its green credentials partly by default.
Isolated in part because of the U.S. trade embargo against the island,
Cuba has been excluded from much of the economic globalization that has
taken its toll on the environment in many other parts of the world.
"The healthy status of much of the wetlands and forests of Cuba is due
not to political influence as much as the lack of foreign exchange with
which to make the investments to convert lands and introduce
petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers," Pearl said.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Cuban factories and
agricultural fields have sat dormant. The island has had to become
self-sufficient, turning to low-energy organic farming.
It has had to scrap most of its fishing fleet because it can't afford to
maintain the ships.
Population pressure has also been a nonissue, with many Cubans fleeing
the country for economic and political reasons.
However, Conservation International's Barborak says it would be wrong to
think Cuba's environmental success is simply due to its economic
underdevelopment.
"If this were true, then Haiti could be expected to be a verdant
ecological paradise, instead of being the most environmentally
devastated country in the region, with just a tiny fraction of its
forest cover intact," he said.
"Cuba's stable population, high literacy rate, clear land-tenure system,
large cadre of well-trained conservationists, and relatively strong
enforcement of laws and regulations are certainly all associated with
its conservation achievements."
So what will happen if Castro's regime falls and a new, democratic
government takes root?
Conservationists and others say they are worried that the pressure to
develop the island will increase and Cuba's rich biodiversity will suffer.
Barborak said he is concerned that "environmental carpetbaggers and
scalawags will come out of the woodwork in Cuba if there is turbulent
regime change.
"One could foresee a flood of extractive industries jockeying for access
to mineral and oil leases," he said.
"A huge wave of extraction of unique and endemic plants and animals
could occur to feed the international wildlife market. And a speculative
tourism and real estate boom could turn much of the coastline into a
tacky wasteland in short order."
"If foreign investments take a much firmer hold, more hotels will be
built and more people will descend on the reefs," added Gebelein, the
Florida International University professor.
"If the Cuban government does not have a swift policy framework to deal
with the huge influx of tourists, investors, and foreign government
interests, a new exploitative paradigm will be the beginning of the end
for some of the last pristine territories in the Caribbean."
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