Introduction to the Cuba projects

Cuba is located in the Northern Caribbean, towards the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. The island extends for more than 750 miles and is a mixture of mountain ranges and plains. The southern part of the Isle of Youth (Isla de la Juventud), the largest island off the coast of Cuba, is an area of significant biodiversity importance. This area is now being proposed as a Sustainable Use and Protected Area (APRM) whilst the western end has been designated as the Punta Frances National Park.

The Punta Frances National Park contains mangroves, lagoons, semi-deciduous forests and coral reefs, and forms an excellent example of relatively undisturbed and linked Caribbean habitats. Operation Wallacea, the Coral Reef Research Unit at Essex University and the Centre for Marine Research at the University of Havana (CIM-UH) have signed a long-term research collaboration agreement to develop and implement a biodiversity monitoring programme that will provide the data needed to inform conservation management practices across the whole of the southern island APRM.

In 2010, CIM-UH established a Research Centre in the Colony Marina that acts as the base for the surveys and also as a training centre for Cuban marine biology students. The survey work is based on research ships operating from the Research Centre. In 2012, the research objective is to complete fish and benthic surveys using video surveys of all the reefs of the southern Isla de la Juventud APRM and to assess the manatee populations by direct observation and side-scan sonar in the mangrove channels.