A Door Opens in Cuba

[Jimmy2]

President Barack Obama's recent easing of travel restrictions on Americans visiting relatives in Cuba may open the door to greater cooperation between these two nations, long at odds with one another. This could be of immense importance not only to Cuban-Americans and their native island neighbors, but to preserving Cuba’s unique, and increasingly threatened, coastal and marine environments.

Lying just 90 miles south of the Florida Keys, where the Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico meet, Cuba is endowed with glittering white beaches, extensive coral reefs and mangrove forests that have remained remarkably unspoiled, despite growing tourism and development pressures.

Cuba's marine habitat nourishes U.S. fisheries

Cuba's coastal waters aren’t just beautiful. They are also vital to healthy fisheries and fishing communities along the southeastern coast of the United States. The island's 4,200 islets and keys support important commercial reef fish species like snapper and grouper and other marine life like sea turtles, dolphins and manatees.

Prevailing ocean currents carry fish larvae into U.S. waters, making protection of the Cuba’s coastal ecosystems critical to replenishing our ailing fisheries. The two nations also share an ancient deepwater coral system, recently discovered, that stretches up to North Carolina.

Oil and gas development threatens marine riches

Today, offshore oil and gas development threatens Cuba's and Florida’s environmental treasures. The recent discovery of oil and natural gas reserves in the Florida Straits has lured foreign oil exploration companies from China, India and elsewhere — all eager to begin extracting these resources.

Environmental Defense Fund has been in Cuba since 2000, working with our Cuban partners on scientific research and strategies for protecting coastal and marine resources. Our experts are working with Cuban scientists on research to ensure that if Cuba taps offshore oil and gas reserves, it is done right — in an environmentally sustainable way. Operating under a special license from the United States government, our efforts have yielded many advances:

We helped create the Caribbean’s largest network of marine protected areas, including the Gardens of the Queen National Marine Park, once Fidel Castro’s favorite spearfishing spot. (See The National System of Marine Protected Areas in Cuba [PDF]).

Our collaboration with Cuban marine scientists helped finalize the boundaries to protect critical fish spawning grounds without harming fishermen's livelihoods.

Our handbook on coastal conservation, in Spanish [PDF], is now available to policymakers and planners to ensure that coastal development does not damage the island’s mangroves, wetlands and other sensitive environments.

Our staff coauthored several books: The Ecology of Marine Fishes (the first of its kind), Cuban Marine Biodiversity and Biology and Management of Caribbean Snappers.

We provided science to Cuba's Ministry of Fisheries that resulted in the elimination of destructive fishing nets.

Ongoing collaboration with Cuban partners

Building on our previous work, our scientists, lawyers and policy experts continue to work closely with a range of non-governmental organizations, scientific and academic institutions, and government officials from the United States, Cuba and Mexico to protect our shared ecological resources:

EDF chief oceans scientist Dr. Doug Rader and attorney Dan Whittle are working hand in hand with Cuban scientists and policy experts to lay a strong legal and policy foundation for conservation as the island's tourism and mining industries expand.

We and our Cuban colleagues publish scientific and legal articles and books, and sponsor workshops and meetings to identify problems and exchange information.

In 2008, we participated in an international meeting in Cuba on ocean energy to explore ways that development of this largely untapped energy source is done right, without harming marine life and habitat.

"We at EDF are excited to work together with our Cuban partners in this new era of collaboration and protect our shared marine treasures," says Scott Edwards, director of our Latin American and Caribbean Oceans program. "We and our partners want to avoid a gold rush of environmentally destructive development."