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CLIMATE CHANGE IS THREATENING TO WIPE OUT PART OF THE CARIBBEAN COASTLINE. AN INTENSE WORK IS UNDERWAY IN CUBA AIMED AT CUTTING DOWN ON ITS EFFECTS AND GETTING USED TO IT

For Sigmund Freud, dreaming of the sea is the way people relate to the water element during these evocations. Then, why don’t we just have fun and make our dreams come true when we’re close to it?
Cuba is basically a sun-and-beach destination. Roughly 80 percent of its guestrooms are nestled in coastal travel destinations, mostly in four- and five-star hotels.
Varadero, in Matanzas, ranks as the number one of those sandy destinations, followed by Jardines del Rey on the Sabana-Camagüey archipelago, Guardalavaca in Holguín, the Ancón Peninsula in Trinidad —Sancti Spíritus—, Cayo Largo de Sur on the Isle of Youth, and other regions that keep making their own headway and are recipients of rekindling investments.
The advance of international tourism on the Cuban archipelago burst out in the late 1980s, precisely focused on the development of the sun-and-beach destinations in all-inclusive resorts. That start picked up steam in the early 1990s as the country begun to rely on economic resources of its own coupled with funds funneled in by foreign capital. The strategy was prompted by the urgency of reeling in new revenues, following the implosion of the Soviet Union and the Socialist bloc that eventually brought the island nation to a profound economic crisis.
Since then, the development of the sun-and-beach destination has been quite visible. From approximately 600,000 international arrivals in the early 1990s, some 4.7 million sunbathers visited the country in 2017 and as many as 5 million visitors are expected to come to Cuba this year, including foreigners and Cuban residents overseas. Most of them stayed either all the time or part of the time at the Cuban beaches.

THE SHAPE OF WATER
The Sol Palmeras Hotel opened in Varadero on May 10, 1990, thus becoming the first business with foreign investment set up in the country after the triumph of the 1959 revolution. Commander Fidel Castro attended the grand opening.
Beyond the iconic traditional beaches, a tourism peak was just about to break out in those pristine sceneries, precious and intimate for barely a bunch of fishermen and coast guards, and for Ernest Hemingway who put them on the map by the hand of its celebrated novel “Islands in the Stream”.
Jardines del Rey –some 465 km from Punta Maternillo in Nuevitas, Camagüey, all the way to the Hicacos Peninsula in Varadero, Matanzas- were hooked up through a road of rocks built on the seabed from Turiguanó to Cayo Coco, in the province of Ciego de Ávila.
Construction of the pedraplén (rocky road) started in 1987. “Throw stones and don’t look ahead” said Fidel Castro on March 13, 1987 to Evelio Capote, the larger-than-life builder who led the teams of workers, technicians and engineers who eventually built the 24-km-long, two-way road on the water, a road that was stretched out later on for dozens of miles through Cayo Coco to reach out to neighboring islets, each and every one of them teeming with untapped beaches and coral reefs that harbor a rich biodiversity.
In 1994, the rocky roads bridged the gap between the main island and the northern offshore keys for a second time as the Caibarién-Cayo Santa María road opened, a project that grabbed the 1998-2000 Alcantara Award for the Best Engineering Work in Iberian-America, thanks to the excellent execution and the protection of the environment in the vicinity.

THE CHANGING CLIMATE
Circa 1996, the ongoing active hurricane season in the Atlantic got underway, which usually stretches out for 25 years. A hurricane like Irma –the mightiest ever to hit the region- generally comes to pass every one hundred years. However, scientific reports might vary as a result of climate change, a process whose effects are impossible to harness, yet can be mitigated with a view to get used to it.
Future forecasts indicate that the rising of sea level in Cuba could peak 27 cm by 2050 and as many as 85 cm in 2100, in keeping with estimates made for the whole planet by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC is the Spanish acronym). Those estimates embrace the 2081-2100 period –as stacked up against the 1986-2005 timeframe- and point to possible rising of sea level in the neighborhood of 26 and 55 cm at the very least, and 45 to 82 cm in the worst-case scenario.
According to Cuba’s Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (CITMA is the Spanish acronym), this means a slow sinking of the ground and the piecemeal salinization of the underground waters as a result of the advance of the so-called saline wedge.
The solid ground that would sink permanently by 2050 could engulf 2,691 square kilometers (2.4 percent of the total), and as many as 6,371 square kilometers (5.8 percent of the total) by 2100. Yet, that outlook could get grimmer once the research on all of the archipelago’s islands, keys and islets is concluded.
Research studies bear out that the local climate is getting increasingly warmer and more extreme, that the annual average temperature has ratcheted up 0.9 degrees Celsius from the mid-1950s, that cyclonic activity is now more intense, that rainfall volumes have shifted dramatically since 1960, that drought is setting in and that the average sea level has risen 6.77 cm.
Failure to apply proper adaptation measures by 2050 could result in the flooding of 14 coastal settlements, climbing to 20 in all by 2100. That could partially affect as many as a hundred cities and towns across the country.
The beaches –home to approximately 80 percent of the tourism infrastructure nationwide that chip in some $3 billion worth of revenue- will also be targeted. Cuba boasts over 400 foreshores and 82 percent of its sandy beaches have been hit by erosion.
Mangroves and reef tips –two elements that provide coasts with natural protection- have also been pounded. Estimates have it that the coastline is retreating at an annual average of 1.2 meters per year –it could be even worse in some areas- and that ten sandy beaches have vanished as a combined result of man’s actions and the destructive aftermath caused by hurricanes and other weather-related phenomena.

TASK “LIFE”
Challenges are huge. However, Cuba is not sitting on its hands. As a matter of fact, the island is the first nation to count on a scientific and institutional strategy aimed at mitigating climate change and adapting to it, valid through the year 2100.
The State Plan against Climate Change –known as Task Life- was passed in April 2017. Its validity and significance for the island nation, the Caribbean and other vulnerable regions were recognized during the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP23), held in November last year in Germany’s Bonn.
In January, the American Association for Science Advance magazine had words of praise for the initiative implemented by the largest Caribbean island.
David Guggenheim, chairman of Ocean Doctor, an independent organization that gathers top marine scientists from around the world, extolled the long-term vision of this governmental strategy. “Cuba is an unusual country in the sense that it does respect its scientists, and its policy to battle climate change is boosted by science,” he said.
Application of the actions mapped out in the State Plan started in vulnerable regions and top-priority areas for the country’s economic and social development. Initially, it included 73 of the island nation’s 168 municipalities, 63 of them located in coastal areas.
As the CITMA Minister has explained in different occasions –the source for the information used in this article- Task Life is indeed a comprehensive response that features a list of prioritized zones and locations, the affectations brought about by climate change and the actions to tackle the issue.
The Plan comprises five strategic actions and eleven tasks, designed as a progressive investment program in different terms: short (2020), mid (2030), long (2050) and very long (2100).
The addition of sand, the restoration of the dunes, the elimination of buildings nestled on the dunes –including hotels- and the rehabilitation of mangroves are all part of the measures aimed at protecting sandy beaches across the country. That’s the best way to stop the deterioration of the coasts’ natural protection.
During a master lecture held in October last year within the framework of the First International Scientific Convention of the “Martha Abreu” Central University in Villa Clara, Cuba’s Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz underscored “the sector’s staunch commitment to environmental protection and the battle against climate change.”
For Mr. Marrero, this is “the only way to make sure the permanence of our job (tourism) in time and the conservation of the country for generations to come.”