Celebrating 25 Years of Action for Biodiversity

Cuba is the principal centre of evolution and speciation in the Antilles, as well as one of the most important islands worldwide for biodiversity [ ] 87 Biological diversity in sectoral plans and programmes A National Soil Improvement and Conservation Programme has ben- efited an annual average of around 500,000 ha of cultivated soils. From 2000 to date, Cuba’s forest index increased from 22.2 to 25.3 per cent and, at the end of 2007, the covered forest area of the country amounted to 2778.5 thousand ha, of which 427.0 thousand ha are from plantations (planted forests) and 2351.5 thousand ha are natural forests. Conservation forests, in which economic deforest- ation is not allowed, constitute 22 per cent of this total and are broken down by categories. A set of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management have been developed — five criteria with 24 indicators — including economic, environmental and social aspects, which are monitored at all levels of the system and provide information on the trends of forest management at different levels. Forestry Management projects have been completed by 15 companies in the forestry business system, four in protected areas and 54 in forestry areas belonging to non-specialized tenants. Over a term of 10 years, management projects have been implemented on a total of 966.800ha, representing 35 per cent of the entire forest area of the country. Between 2000 and 2007, provincial prevention programmes against for- est fires have been established at the national level. Zones have been declared under a special regime of use and protection where certain conditions have been established for their exploitation. For instance, the use of certain fishing gear is prohibited or controlled at dams and “chinchorro” practices are banned due to their acknowledged negative effect on marine ecology and biodiversity. There is also an inten- tion on the part of the Multi-annual Indicative Programme (MIP) to eliminate them permanently. Waterfall in the Escambray mountains Cuba T he distribution of species is not uniform throughout Cuban territory, since it is concentrated in the oldest and most stable regions, such as the mountainous zones of the west, centre, north-east, and south-east of the island, as well as in areas of extreme conditions such as the serpentine hills and plains, the semi-arid south-east coasts and the plains of siliceous sands of the west. The high endemism of Cuban terrestrial biodiversity is due, among other factors, to the geographical isolation given by the insularity of the Cuban archipelago, the mosaic of soils due to the complexity and geological heterogeneity, as well as latitudinal and climatic differences. Tobias Nordhausen on flickr