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By: Katie Thompson Cayo Largo is a tourism hot spot off the southern coast of Cuba. The white sand beaches and turquoise waters draw international visitors from primarily Italy and Canada looking for a sand-and-sun vacation. These visitors however typically don’t know that Cayo Largo is also the most important sea turtle nesting site in Cuba. Cayo Largo receives an average of 2,000 green and loggerhead nests per year on approximately 15 km of beach. Cuba's Centro de Investigaciones Pesqueras (CIP) had monitored turtles in Cayo Largo since the 1970's as part of national fisheries management efforts, giving scientists the first understanding of nesting sea turtles in the region. Lining the coast of the key are five all-inclusive hotels operating within walking distance of regular active nesting monitoring and the tourists (in general) have no idea! While there is a rescue center that organizes the public release of hatchlings from nests laid in areas threatened by tourism, there is no ethic to encourage tourism that offers unique views of these creatures. We believe there is real potential in Cayo Largo to study the nesting sea turtles while educating tourists, which is why CubaMar and its Cuban partners started a project in Cayo Largo to do exactly that.
This project initiated when sea turtle scientists from Cuba and the U.S. gathered for the 5th International Workshop on Cuban Sea Turtle Research and Conservation in Cayo Largo in August of 2017. The objective of our workshop was to conceive a plan to restore regular research efforts during the nesting season, organize satellite tracking efforts on the island, and develop a permanent sea turtle rehabilitation program in Cuba to address turtles adversely impacted by incidental bycatch, disease, and turtle strandings. The consensus at this workshop was to secure funding to support research trips to Cayo Largo, whereby Cuban scientists would patrol beaches and collect nesting and hatchling data. The first of these research expedition happened last November thanks to funding from Lush Cosmetics. The expedition to Cayo Largo was led by our partner and director of the Guanahacabibes Sea Turtle Research and Conservation Project, Dr. Julia Azanza, to document last year’s sea turtle nesting activity on the key. Dr. Azanza and her group of eight sea turtle scientists walked seven beaches looking for sea turtle tracks and evidence of nests. They documented 1,454 nests in total, which is actually below average for Cayo Largo. Of these nests, 1,247 were green turtle nests and 207 were loggerhead. The scientists analyzed 51 of those nests by digging them up to see how many of the turtles actually hatched and found that the hatching and emergence success rate was 74%, which is lower than seen on other Cuban nesting beaches.* The research team believes the lower success rate is due to the flooding from Tropical Storm Michael that passed over Cuba in October. One interesting find was a nest with many albino embryos. This research expedition helps us understand a little more about the sea turtle nesting occurring in Cayo Largo. It is only the beginning of our project to study Cuba’s largest sea turtle nesting population and we look further to future research trips and to creating a long-term monitoring and education program. Great job, team! Thanks to support from Lush Cosmetics and Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation for making this project possible. *Azanza Ricardo, J., Medina Cruz, Y., Forneiro Martín-Viaña, Y., Nodarse Andreu, G., García Alfonso, E., Calderón Peña, R., Betancourt Ávila, R., Pérez Alarcón, A. y Fernández Alvarez, J.C. 2018. Trabajo con tortugas marinas en Cayo Largo. Informe Final. 4pp. Pictures from the November 2018 expedition: Read more about CubaMar's sea turtle work.
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By: Fernando Bretos On paper Cuba and the island nation of Seychelles are miles apart. That’s 9,000 miles as the crow flies if you ask. I know because I took the very long flight from Miami to Seychelles in early September. Including the nine-hour layover in Qatar, it took over 30 hours to get to this jewel of the Indian Ocean. Yet the two countries share many similarities namely an inherent dependence on the ocean for their economy and wellbeing. Both are considered Small Island Developing States (SIDS), a term that, while falling out of favor, captures their essence as highly autonomous island states. Cuba and Seychelles are also highly dependent on both tourism and fisheries. These industries, which are highly dependent on optimal ocean health, are critical to how both countries maintain economic stability. While Seychelles relies on tuna as its major export, Cuba’s commercial fishery depends on reef fish and lobster which are exported to Europe and North America. Tourism in both countries is on the rise. Cuba reached four million annual tourists for the first time in 2017. Seychelles, an island nation of 90,000 receives three times its population in foreign tourists. Both are reliant on what is called a “blue economy.” This new concept states that resources from the ocean, including clean water, fisheries and even oxygen, should be incorporated into national planning and development.  One of the many beautiful beaches of the Seychelles. Seychelles is one of the first island states to officially incorporate blue economy into all of its policies; to the point that they have their own ministry and minister of blue economy. Hence this small island state has become the envy of the world. The little island nation that could has become a model for how SIDS, or any coastal country, can integrate human, economic and ocean health. These parallels, along with the strong ongoing bilateral relationships between Cuba and Seychelles, recently inspired the idea of an exchange between both countries to explore how each can learn from each other. The idea took off during a meeting I had in January 2018 with Ambassador Ronny Jumeau, Seychelles’ Ambassador for Climate Change to the United Nations. Immensely proud of his country, Ambassador Jumeau loved the idea and shared with me that both the President of Seychelles, Mr. Danny Faure and his brother, Vice President Barry Faure, both studied in Cuba! The meeting with Ambassador Jumeau sparked the idea for a scouting visit to Seychelles. I wasted little time in planning the excursion. When I saw the granite cliffs of Seychelle’s main island of Mahé emerge from the vast Indian Ocean on the descent from my flight I knew I was in for a once in a lifetime experience. On my visit I had meetings with representatives from a variety of sectors including the Seychelles Fisheries Authority and the Marine Spatial Planning Program which is using blue economy to assess impacts and opportunities for marine resources. It became clear during these encounters that our exchange would be iterative and beneficial to both sides.  Exploring the island on a hike. Recreational fishing in Seychelles, for example, is at the same stage as in Cuba in that until recently few foreigners visited to fish the high seas or in shore areas. Cuba, in a similar vein, is only recently assessing the need to collect data on recreational fisheries and issue licenses to foreign fishers. CubaMar, The Ocean Foundation and the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies are working with Cuba on precisely this issue. We even explored the policy, governance, and organizational management strategy of the pioneering Seychelles debt swap program that began in 2009, and the new SeyCCAT initiative that is applying the benefits of this program for positive marine conservation results. We feel it is particularly important for Cuba’s representatives to learn how 70% of the swap is being paid in local capacity and to examine the methods used to develop the Seychelles blue bond program in order to explore the feasibility of replicating this approach in the Caribbean The transboundary MPA between Mauritius and Seychelles, called Saya de Malha, covers 1.4M km 2 in area over their continental shelf. We believe it could be an ideal model for the western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico where Cuba, Mexico and the US have initiated a similar transboundary MPA network in the Gulf of Mexico. As with any international delegation, we expect this to be a two-way learning exchange in which Seychelles government officials, fisheries and tourism practitioners and other stakeholders can also learn about how Cuba is managing its own marine resources. Our exchange, consisting of a visit of Cuban experts to Seychelles, is slated to take place in April 2019. I look forward to seeing the granite cliffs of Mahe with our colleagues and rekindling the sparks I ignited on my first trip with our new Seychellois colleagues.  Our new colleagues.  Asli Pelit (left), Fernando Bretos (right) By: Fernando Bretos and Asli Pelit CubaMar and filmmaker Ziggy Livnat recently released a documentary about the fishing community of Cocodrilo, Cuba. Funded by a grant from the Conservation Media Group, the film tells the story of Cocodrilo, an isolated fishing community located on the remote southern coast of Isla de la Juventud. Cocodrilo youth and fishers speak candidly about how the ocean impacts their lives and how they wish to dedicate their careers and livelihoods to protecting it. The film can be viewed in its entirety here. It has been CubaMar’s goal to have the film shown on Cuban television given its portrayal of Cocodrilo as a potential model for other remote Cuban fishing communities. Specifically, the film explores how a community that for over a century relied on extractive use of the ocean (fishing and specifically turtle fishing) can transition to a model that values marine resources such as coral reefs or turtles for their non-extractive value (ecotourism). Following almost a year of meetings with Cuban Institute of Radio and Television Island of Youth-Island of Change will air on Cuban television. The documentary will screen in September 2018, on Cubavision International’s weekly travel show: Esto es Cuba. In advance of the screening, Esto es Cuba’s producers invited CubaMar Director Fernando Bretos and Producer Asli Pelit to Cuba in August for a special interview to introduce the documentary. During the interview Bretos and Pelit responded to journalist Dianik Flores’s questions about the documentary, Cocodrilo and its residents, as well as production related questions and why the documentary was made. Cubavision International is an internationally broadcasted Spanish-language channel run by Cuban national broadcaster, Cuban Institute of Radio and Television. The channel offers the world a variety of programming, the production of which is entirely Cuban. Among the programming highlights are soap operas, music programs, documentaries on flora and fauna, history of the country and various information and opinion. Esto Es Cuba is one of Cubavision International’s weekly shows, hosted by Dianik Flores. Flores explained the show as “a travel show that promotes remote places in Cuba.”  Dianik Flores (center) with Asli and Fernando By: Katie Thompson and Fernando Bretos From whale sharks and sea turtles (Figures 1 & 2) to corals and lobsters, the connectivity within the Gulf of Mexico and Western Caribbean is strong. Marine species depend on healthy environments throughout the region no matter the country and political boundaries. For this reason, it's important for the three countries surrounding the Gulf of Mexico (Cuba, US, Mexico) to collaborate on research, information sharing and training in the Gulf of Mexico. But how do three countries with different systems, priorities, and politics begin to work together to protect their shared resources? One way is through the Gulf of Mexico Marine Protected Area Network (RedGolfo). On May 25th, 2018, a group of scientists, marine protected area managers and policy experts from Cuba, Mexico and the United States gathered in Merida, Mexico to advance RedGolfo and make true trinational collaboration in the Gulf of Mexico a reality.  Figure 1. Whale shark tags in the Gulf of Mexico from "Horizontal Movements, Migration Patterns, and Population Structure of Whale Sharks in the Gulf of Mexico and Northwestern Caribbean Sea" by Hueter et al  Figure 2. The sea turtle Esperanza tagged in Guanahacabibes, Cuba went back and forth between Cuba and Mexico nesting multiple times (Sea Turtle Conservancy). Where did RedGolfo come from? A history of collaboration in the Gulf RedGolfo emerged out of the 2014 rapprochement between Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro. After 55 years of political deadlock the leaders of both countries saw environmental cooperation as the first priority for bilateral cooperation. As a result, two environmental agreements were announced in November 2015. One of those, the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Conservation and Management of Marine Protected Areas, created a unique bilateral network that facilitates joint efforts concerning the science, stewardship, and management across five sites: Cuba’s Guanahacabibes National Park-Banco de San Antonio Prominent Natural Element and US’s Florida Keys and Flower Gardens National Marine Sanctuaries and Dry Tortugas and Biscayne National Parks. This agreement was orchestrated by the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Park Service (NPS) and Cuba’s National Center for Protected Areas (CNAP). In addition to the MOU signed by Cuba and US in 2015, there have been various transnational efforts that focus on the Gulf of Mexico and Western Caribbean. For example, the Project “Implementation of the Strategic Action Program of the Gulf of Mexico Large Marine Ecosystem (GOM LME)” aims to pursue a healthy, productive and resilient GOM by improving water quality through reducing pollution and nutrient loading, restoring depleted stocks of living resources including fisheries, and conserving and restoring coastal and marine ecosystems. In 2012, Mexico's Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP) and US's NOAA signed a MOU which is currently up for renewal that confirms the commitment of Mexico and US to collaborate in the support of the integrated management of the Gulf of Mexico MPAs. And this year, Mexico's CONANP and Cuba's CNAP signed an agreement to increase collaboration between their MPAs. While all of these processes were happening, at CubaMar we have been strengthening our work in the Gulf of Mexico, primarily through the Trinational Initiative. We realized our goals of collaboration in the Gulf of Mexico aligned well with the GOM LME Project and the governments' signings of MOUs--the moment was right to consolidate the various marine trinational efforts under one MPA network, which is why RedGolfo was born. The idea of creating RedGolfo was made official at a meeting in Cozumel in December 2017 that featured two dozen MPA managers from Cuba, Mexico and the US. Since the Cozumel meeting, the network has expanded to 12 different sites, creating a broad and far flung network that stretches across the Gulf of Mexico (Figure 3).  Figure 3. Sites in the Gulf of Mexico Marine Protected Area Network (RedGolfo). Mérida 2018: Identifying priorities for the Gulf of Mexico Marine Protected Area Network The official title of the Merida meeting was Policy Approaches to Enhance Transboundary Cooperation for the Creation of a Network of Sister Marine Protected Areas in the Gulf of Mexico. The meeting was funded by the Summit Foundation, JetBlue, IWLearn and GOM LME. In Merida, the three sanctioned MPA managing agencies in Cuba, Mexico and the US along with leaders from nonprofits working in the trinational region came together with a goal to more accurately define what a new MPA network encompassing the largest enclosed body of water in the Western Atlantic would look like. What would make it unique? How would it be funded in perpetuity? How would it address joint threats such as mass tourism, climate change and overfishing using shared resources? What other MPA network models could be used to inform its design and function? How would shared migratory and dispersive species and habitats be protected and monitored? These are just a few of the important questions to consider when forming a network.
Left: Participants attend plenary sessions on RedGolfo’s expectations, key management challenges and solutions, and policy connectivity. Right: CubaMar Director Fernando Bretos presents on the Trinational Initiative’s role in creation of RedGolfo. A major result of the meeting was that participants identified immediate outputs for execution in the first year of RedGolfo. These outputs are:
In order to achieve the outputs above, the group proposed the following activities for year one of RedGolfo:
 In order to proceed with the network, meeting participants discussed some challenges that need to be overcome. For example, network members need to agree on a definition and function of the network. We also need to identify shared monitoring and evaluation tools since currently the diversity of tools used in the MPAs of the three countries makes comparison between them difficult. And as always, funding remains a challenge.
Next steps The next RedGolfo meeting will take place in October in Cuba in conjunction with the 2018 Cuban Marine Science Conference. Stay tuned regarding new developments regarding RedGolfo! 1/10/2018 Sharing experiences across the Yucatán Channel: A learning exchange on sustainable tourism and marine protected areasRead NowBy: Katie Thompson and Fernando Bretos Over the past two years, tourism from the U.S. to Cuba has increased 36%, while tourism from other countries has also risen. The increasing demand, coupled with Cuba’s limited service and infrastructure capacity for tourism are posing never-before-seen challenges for Cuban tourism officials and planning agencies. Pressure is mounting on the country’s coastal environments.  Cruise ship enters the Port of Havana. From Miami Herald This new reality places Cuba in a unique position to consider the future of its tourism industry. How can Cuba develop sustainable marine and coastal tourism that protects the clear waters, sandy beaches, and marine life on which that same industry depends? An opportunity exists for Cuba to learn from the experiences of neighboring Mesoamerican Reef (MAR) countries in an effort to minimize the effect of the all-inclusive mass tourism experience that is causing both environmental havoc and deterioration of the local social fabric in many places around the world.  The distance between the Mesoamerican Reef and Guanahacabibes, the western tip of Cuba, is only 145 miles. The estimated threat level to the reefs are highlighted on map. Red=high threat level, Yellow=Medium, Blue=Low. From ReefBase In December of 2017, CubaMar brought a Cuban delegation to Cancun and Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico to learn about sustainable tourism successes and shortfalls. Cuba and Cozumel have many similarities. In addition to being both islands, Cuba and Cozumel both rely on growing cruise ship visitation and dive tourism. For the exchange, we invited 11 Cuban delegates, mostly from the Cuban Centro Nacional de Areas Protegidas (CNAP) the government agency that manages all of Cuba’s 105 protected areas. They were joined by experts from the NOAA National Marine Sanctuary Program and a cadre of Mexican sustainable tourism experts. Our hosts in Mexico for the week-long exchange were the Municipio de Cozumel and the Mesoamerican Reef Tourism Initiative (MARTI), an initiative made up of nonprofit and private sector representatives working to maintain sustainable tourism in the MAR that supports local communities while ensuring healthy marine and costal resources. The week started in Cancun with a visit to the Isla Cancun tourism zone which is home to hundreds of large hotels, mostly all-inclusive beach resorts. Tourism in Quintana Roo, the home state of Cancun, has grown at a staggering rate from its beginning in the 1970s when it was only several fishing villages to nearly 10 million annual tourists reported in 2016. Today, Quintana Roo receives almost three times the tourism the entire nation of Cuba receives a year.
Our first visit was to the Torres Escenicas de Cancun, an elevator tower that provided a bird’s eye view of the entire panorama of the Cancun coastline. In plain view was how unchecked tourism development can quickly colonize a once pristine area. After the tower experience we walked on the hotel beaches which revealed high levels of erosion due to the construction on once vegetated dunes. Leading the site visit was Vicente Ferreyra of Sustentur, a local nonprofit that aims to encourage sustainable best practices in the region. A presentation by Gonzalo Merediz, director of Amigos de Si’an Ka’an provided statistics on the development the Mexican Caribbean and a snapshot of Si’an Ka’an, a nature preserve that is leading the way in promoting sustainable use of the areas coastal resources. Next our delegation traveled to Cozumel where we first heard presentations by organizations working on sustainable tourism in the region. The director of MARTI, Sarah Connor, presented about some of MARTI’s projects to promote collaboration between the private, nonprofit, and government sectors of the MAR region in order to lessen the potential negative impacts of the tourism industry on the reefs. Participants heard from the Municipio de Cozumel and the German Corporation for International Cooperation about their study on the effects of the cruise tourism industry in Cozumel.  Carlos Diaz, Director of the Cuban Center for Protected Areas, talks with a representative of Puerta Maya. After the presentations, we visited two sites, the Puerta Maya cruise terminal and the Iberostar Hotel. Cozumel receives a staggering 4 million cruise tourists per year and Puerta Maya receives most of those. By visiting the terminal during peak hours when three cruise ships were unloading passengers, our Cuban delegation was able to witness firsthand how large-scale cruise tourism can monopolize the clientele while preventing economic benefits to local communities outside of the facility. It is our hope that Cuba will avoid this type of large scale cruise tourism. This will require hard negotiating from the Cuban government to ensure their leverage is never compromised.  Our visit to Puerta Maya gave the Cuban delegation a look into large scale cruise tourism (6 boats a day, 5,000 people per boat!) After our visit to Puerta Maya we visited the Iberostar Cozumel Hotel, which is conducting voluntary best practices to ensure sustainability in its facility. It recycles wastewater, landscapes with native vegetation and ensures its guests use the hotel’s resources smartly. To finish the day, we heard from Rosendo Martínez from the Cuban Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of the Environment, about a successful small-scale tourism project near Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. The last day we heard presentations by representatives of Mexico’s Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP), specifically the director of Parque Nacional de Arrecifes de Cozumel and the regional director for the Yucatan Peninsula and Caribbean. Finally, some participants went for a dive in the Parque Nacional de Arrecifes de Cozumel to see first-hand the coral reef we had talked about all week. Overall, it was clear participants from all countries learned from each other and formed lasting professional connections. The Cuban delegation in particular brought back lessons learned from decades of experience in Quintana Roo. We hope to conduct additional phases of the exchange in the future to continue the sharing of experiences and knowledge between Cuba and Mexico. Thank you to the Summit Foundation for the support to implement the exchange and to our generous hosts in Cozumel--it would not have been possible without you!
 The exchange organizers from left to right, Mark Spalding (The Ocean Foundation), Alejandra Navarrete (UNIDO), Katie Thompson (CubaMar), Fernando Bretos (CubaMar) Photos by: Shireen Rahimi, Katie Thompson, and Fernando Bretos  Fernando, director of CubaMar. As director of CubaMar, I have a dream job working on marine conservation in Cuba. Cuba, with its 3,000 miles of coastline, is the largest island in the Caribbean. It is also the country my parents emigrated from in 1961 as teenagers meaning that Cuba is also something of a home. My passion to study and conserve Cuba’s and the surrounding region’s marine environments is what motivates my work today. One field of research that is dear to me is the study of sea turtles.  Sea turtle hatchlings. Once I saw my first female green turtle nesting turtle on a beach in 2002, I fell in love with these sentinel creatures who over 200 million years ago left their comfy lives on land to navigate the oceans in search of food, mates and every year or two, a beach to lay their eggs. And that’s only the females. Male turtles live their life at sea, which makes them even more difficult to study. But the females offer us an exclusive glimpse into the behavior and physiology of these highly evolved reptiles. The island’s abundance of beach habitat and ample foraging grounds, especially on its southern platform, make it a hotbed for sea turtle nesting and foraging. Primarily, three species of turtle nest and feed in Cuban waters: green, loggerhead and hawksbill turtles. In 2000, I came across a unique citizen science project that is gathering critical information about sea turtles in Guanahacabibes National Park in extreme western Cuba. Initiated in 1998 by the renowned marine scientist, Dr. María Elena Ibarra Martín, this project has engaged University of Havana students in patrolling Guanahacabibes’ beaches for nesting activity. It has become the largest ongoing nest-monitoring project in Cuba. University of Havana students spend two-week shifts at the park walking the length of seven beaches looking for nesting activity.
Working on this project has been one of the highlights of my career. In addition to supporting the project, one of my tasks has been to co-host regular international Cuban sea turtle workshops. The first four workshops (2002, 2005, 2009, 2013) focused on different research and conservation objectives. The 2002 workshop was devoted to advancing tagging efforts, while the 2005 workshop explored ways to engage fishing communities near Guanahacabibes National Park in protecting turtles for tourism purposes rather than for their value on a plate. The 2009 workshop took place at the Isle of Youth and was dedicated to working with fishermen throughout Cuba in reducing turtle bycatch. Our 2013 workshop at Guanahacabibes National Park explored ways to study turtles in their ocean habitat as opposed to solely on beaches. Each of the four workshops has brought together the Cuban research community and provided a formal setting to take stock of Cuban sea turtle science and chart the course forward. Most recently in August, sea turtle scientists from Cuba and the U.S. gathered for the 5th International Workshop on Cuban Sea Turtle Research and Conservation in Cayo Largo, Cuba. Cayo Largo is the most important nesting site in Cuba with an average of 2,000 green and loggerhead nests per year on approximately 15 km of beach. Cayo Largo is also an important tourism site with five all inclusive hotels operating within walking distance of regular active nesting activity. Walking on the beaches at night during the nesting season involves taking very careful steps not to step on a nest.  Cayo Largo, indicated by red circle, is not located in a protected area.  The picturesque Cayo Largo. The objective of our workshop was to conceive a plan to restore regular research efforts during the nesting season, organize satellite tracking efforts on the island and develop a permanent sea turtle rehabilitation program in Cuba to address turtles adversely impacted by incidental bycatch, disease (particularly fibropalliloma tumors) and turtle strandings. Sadly, tourism to Cayo Largo, which mostly consists of Canadian and Italian beachgoers, does not take advantage of the beautiful natural denizens of the island. While there is a rescue center that organizes the public release of hatchlings (an activity that is shunned upon by turtle scientists) from nests laid in areas threatened by tourism, there is no ethic to encourage tourism that offers unique views of these creatures. In essence the island needs more tourism, especially in the summer nesting season, which coincides with the lowest tourist season, to create incentives for the five hotels operating on the island to care more about their conservation. The consensus decision at the workshop was to secure funding to support three trips to Cayo Largo (June, July and August 2018), whereby Cuban scientists and volunteers will patrol beaches and collect nesting and hatchling data. Also, Cuba lacks a wildlife rehabilitation center whereby diseased turtles or those caught incidentally by fishers can be treated and returned to the wild. At our workshops we identified a wildlife veterinarian named Eddy García, who will undergo training in Florida in January 2018. There Mr. Garcia, a trained veterinarian and manatee biologist, will learn firsthand from staff of a wildlife rehabilitation program as they treat injured turtles in Tampa Bay. Our 5th workshop was a great success and we look forward to creating this new program at Cayo Largo, Cuba’s most important sea turtle nesting site. This project is just one piece of CubaMar's dedication to sea turtle conservation in Cuba.
UPDATE: Unfortunately a week after our workshop, Hurricane Irma ravaged the north coast of Cuba as a category five storm. Not only did Eddy García lose his house in Santa Clara but two of the research institutions I work with here badly damaged. Please consider donating toward their recovery here.
By Daria Siciliano, Ph.D., CubaMar Chief Scientist Mitigation efforts for the lionfish invasion in the Caribbean depend on local overall reef health and resiliency, and the initial lionfish densities. In collaboration with colleagues at the Acuario Nacional de Cuba (ANC), and the Parque Nacional de Guanahacabibes (GNP), we are exploring the necessary removal effort required to mitigate declines of native species due to lionfish in western Cuba, at the GNP’s marine reserve off of Maria La Gorda. Recently scientists studying other Caribbean locations have found that complete eradication of lionfish is not necessary for native species recovery, and that culling of lionfish may be a practical solution to mitigate their impacts. We set up to determine what is the minimum effort needed to achieve specific removal targets at this location. Determining the minimum effort needed is particularly important in Cuba, a country with uniquely limited resources. And it is particularly important for the Guanahacabibes National park marine protected area, which has the highest densities of lionfish in all of Cuba. It is also a site with considerable historical data, where lionfish, native fish densities and other ecological indicators have been estimated at regular intervals for the past two decades, with more frequent surveys during the last 7 years.
 Hansel Caballero cleaning A.cervicornis trees planted in March 2017. So in August 2017, I joined my colleagues at the Acuario Nacional, led by Pedro Chevalier, Dorka Cobian, the PNG biologist in charge of all research and monitoring at the marine park, plus staff from the Instituto de Oceanologia, in a research expedition aimed at understanding the minimum catch effort for lionfish required in the Guanahacabibes MPA. In addition to lionfish removals, we carried out fish surveys using 6 transects of 50m, surveying all fish including lionfish, with estimates of fish size and biomass for both the native fish and invasive lionfish. Over the course of one week, our team of 8 scientists plus dive staff conducted a total of 15 dives on the fore reef and reef edge, at sites ranging between 10 and 25m depth. At each location, two fish surveyors (Pedro Chevalier and Dorka Cobian) would lay out three 50m transects in opposite directions (6 linear transects each) along the reef edge, and estimate abundance and size of all native fish along a 2m belt centered on the transect (1m on each side). After the fish surveyors got a head start on the transect, the lionfish hunters (myself, Hansel Caballero, Victor Isla and Lorena Gonzalez) would start scouring the reef, covering the entire length of the 150m transects, the width of the reef, and up to a depth of 25m to remove all lionfish in sight. We used spear poles (manufactured by REEF) and Zookeper Lionfish containment devices (also manufactured by REEF ) to store the animals following capture. Once back on the boat, the specimens were dissected for stomach analysis. In addition to lionfish, during the August 2017 expedition was also dedicated to restoring coral, focusing on Acropora cervicornis, a project started by our ANC colleagues in 2015. When we first arrived at Maria La Gorda, back at the hotel we started assembling new coral trees from PVC material with floaters and weights, so we could anchor each tree to the substrate once in the water. On our first dive, we reached a sandy plain in waters about 5-8m depth, the location of the A. cervicornis plantings from March 2017, and planted the new trees next to the existing ones. We then spent a good amount of the dive cleaning with steel brushes the existing trees, to get them free of algae, hydrozoans, mollusks and other epiphytes that had colonized the tree structure since the March plantings. Everyone got stung by the floating hydrozoans that resulted, and we all had rashes on our faces and other bare skin for the rest of the week!  Team working on coral trees anchored to the sandy substrate off of Maria La Gorda. Later in the week we went to the location of older A. cervicornis trees (planted in 2015) which had grown considerably (about 10-25 cm), and cut fragments from them, divided them in two different sizes, and collected them in two plastic crates. With the larger fragments, we moved to the adjacent reef where we planted them using cement contained in… condoms (seems a favorite tool of Cuban marine researchers – see section on coral coring…!), which we used to pour cement on the base of the coral fragments to attach them to the reef. On successive dives, we took the smaller fragments and hanged them on the new trees we had planted, after fitting them to host the coral fragments. Again we used a lot of the dive to clean the older trees of epiphytes, this time taking ample care to cover each inch of our skin that might have been exposed.  Daria Siciliano planting A. cervicornis fragments on the reef. Overall the expedition was a great success. Thank you to my colleagues at ANC, PNG, and all of the super helpful staff of the Centro Internacional de Buceo Maria la Gorda, particularly Rafael Valdez, who took great care of us on the boat and in the water!
 Daria Siciliano preparing to spear the invasive species. By: Shireen Rahimi I was lying on my back across the seat of the taxi, slowly savoring a short story as we hurtled eastward along the freeway back to Havana. I spaced out in the middle of my reading, staring at the car ceiling, when I noticed our driver pulling over to the side of the road—the car had overheated. I stepped out into the blazing midday sun, eyes squinting, and leaned against the tired car, waiting for the car to cool. After three rounds of frantically pushing the car down the flat, barren freeway, it jump started and we were on our way. It was the perfect ending to my first field expedition in Cuba: adversity, perseverance, ingenuity, and—eventually—a solution. As a PhD student at the University of Miami’s Abess Center, and in partnership with The Ocean Foundation’s Cuba Marine Research and Conservation Program, I am doing my doctoral research on a coral reef ecosystem in western Cuba. I decided to focus on a Cuban reef for several reasons. The country has been relatively successful in maintaining the integrity of its marine ecosystems thanks to low levels of development, some reefs’ uniquely stable ecosystem dynamics despite climate change, and its extensive (although inconsistently enforced) National System of Protected Areas. However, improved relations between the Cuban and U.S. governments have already led to increased tourism, and experts are expecting more coastal development and up to 10 million tourists visiting the island per year in the near future. The country’s reefs—which support Cuba’s tourism economy, and also serve as important sources of genetic diversity for reefs across the region—are highly vulnerable to these sociopolitical and environmental changes. For my project, I will be looking at how these external forces are currently impacting coastal ecosystems in Guanahacabibes, a national park on the western tip of the island. The goal of this project is to understand how these tourism-based impacts can be managed to make sure Guanahacabibes does not suffer the all-too-common fate of beautiful, coastal areas left degraded and spoiled by unregulated tourism.
In order to understand these impacts, I first had to become familiar with my field site. So, along with my co-advisor Dr. Daria Siciliano of CubaMar, I set out on a 4-hour long, cross country journey from the country’s capital to the remote coast of Guanahacabibes National Park. I had been to Havana twice before, but the roads out of the capital and through Pinar del Rio, lined with tobacco fields, dotted with horse drawn carts, and back dropped by lush, green, plateaued mountains left me wide-eyed and nostalgic for a past I never even knew. Finally, we entered the park, and I realized first-hand why a study of tourism impacts on this site made sense. Guanahacabibes is a tourist’s dream: one convenient road connects a network of foot trails, winding through coastal tropical forests, teeming with iguanas and over 170 species of birds, leading to white sand beaches, native turtle nesting grounds, crystal clear waters, and beautiful coral reefs. Its most prized attraction, the Maria la Gorda dive resort, lies toward the eastern end of the park. It sits on a slightly protected part of the Bahia de Corrientes, and hosts tourist activities such as cruise ship landings, SCUBA diving and snorkeling, boating, and trail excursions. For my project, I will be collecting and analyzing data on these tourist activities to determine how they are impacting the area, and at what levels they should be limited. In order to do this, I first need to figure out what factors are impacting these ecosystems the most. Are SCUBA divers trampling coral? Are boats carelessly dropping their anchors, leaving gaping holes in the reef? Are cruise passengers destroying native dune vegetation during their beach parties? As a first step, I presented our ideas for my dissertation research to a group of park managers and rangers, including our close colleague and park manager Dr. Dorka Cobián Rojas, to figure out what impacts we should focus on measuring. After a productive hour and a half of discussion, we left with a long list of important factors to consider, which we are currently working on whittling down. Once we have a short list of factors, we can figure out what data we will need, and how these data will be used to estimate how many tourists the site can accommodate before it becomes significantly degraded, known as the site’s carrying capacity. Estimating carrying capacity is important because, unlike sites in the Florida Keys or Cancun, Guanahacabibes has not yet seen huge impacts from tourism, and a carrying capacity measurement could allow us to preemptively manage these reefs.  On our second day on site, Dr. Siciliano, Dr. Cobián Rojas, and I boarded the resort’s dive boat to check out one of Maria La Gorda’s famously rugose reefs, Yemaya. The waters around the boat shone a transparent shade of turquoise, clear like distorted glass. I could see all the way to the white sandy bottom, and I quickly realized how much cleaner these waters were compared to those near my home in Miami. The boat set out in haste and I strained to listen as our dive guide yelled our dive plan over the roar of the engines in thick Cuban Spanish. We geared up and jumped in. As we descended through the shallow waters, the sun beamed rays through the water, illuminating tiny transparent pelagic animals, dancing in the light in front of my eyes. We dropped down sixty feet to the brightly colored reef surface: groupers wove through sponges, gorgonians swayed back and forth, and large schools of small fish swam by without a care. We went through a gaping hole in the surface of the reef, which quickly became a narrow crevice, lined with rare black coral and sponges of all shapes and colors. I eventually saw a narrow strip of blue in the distance and eagerly swam towards it, emerging from the massive walls of the crevice onto the cliff face of the reef tract, looking out into infinite amounts of water in all directions—a deep, sapphire blue abyss of pure ocean. I felt dizzy, almost hypnotized, as my eyes strained to register the enormous expanse. Then, all at once, I took a deep breath and snapped myself out of it—the clock was ticking, and there was work to be done.
Photos by Dorka Cobián Rojas
Written by: CubaMar Program Coordinator Katie Thompson Photos by: Natalie Kraft Since the day I started working for CubaMar, everyone was always talking about Jardines de la Reina (Gardens of the Queen). Jardines de la Reina National Park is the largest marine reserve in the Caribbean at 840 miles squared and is home to large swaths of mangroves, coral reefs, and seagrass. It’s known as the “Galapagos of the Caribbean” or the “Jewel of the Caribbean”. It’s home to marine life seen nowhere else in the Caribbean. And the story goes that Christopher Columbus named Jardines in honor the Queen of Spain—its beauty was fit for a queen! Since its founding, CubaMar has conducted research cruises with our Cuban partners to study the richness of Jardines’ marine life. Fernando (CubaMar director) and Daria (CubaMar Lead Scientist) have always returned from these trips amazed and with a renewed motivation for our conservation work. In a way, visiting Jardines is like going back in time, especially today when roughly 90% of fish biomass has been removed from the average Caribbean reef (Valdivia et al. 2017). Fortunately, Jardines is an above average reef and is estimated to have the highest fish biomass in the Caribbean.
Jardines is one of the most well enforced protected areas in the region and has a unique partnership with a SCUBA diving and fly-fishing operation that brings tourists to the park. Its remoteness is another key factor in its protection—it’s located 60 miles south of Cuba mainland (about a 5 hour boat ride). The park has been protected from large-scale fishing since it was established in 1996 and only 1000 divers and 500 fly fishers are allowed to visit each year. This cap on visitors limits the impact of tourism, and as demand continues to rise so does the price to visit. I was wondering if I would every be able to see Jardines for myself… Then it happened! In February 2017 I was part of research cruise where CubaMar partnered with Harte Research Institute to identify potential research sites and develop future research collaborations with our Cuban partners.
Even given all that I had heard about Jardines, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw on the many dives during the weeklong trip. In Cuba, like in other parts of the Caribbean, there are not many large fish at all because they have been overfished, but in Jardines, there were many. And the sharks! I had never seen so many sharks. It was also my first time seeing a sea turtle while diving in Cuba. The coral looked much healthier in Jardines than any other place I had seen in Cuba. I came up from every dive absolutely amazed. The mangroves were also a sight to see. Their importance in the region’s marine ecosystems became immediately clear seeing the large schools of juvenile fish hiding among the roots.
After experiencing Jardines, my perspective has changed. Now I understand how Cuban marine life was, what it could be (even thought I'm sure Jardines has also changed). I have a renewed sense of purpose for my work. I’m also hopeful. The same study that found that 90% of fish biomass has been removed from the Caribbean showed that marine reserves have greater fish biomass than unprotected sites. Meaning local protection can restore fish communities if well implemented! My trip to Jardines shows how important perspective is in an ocean that is changing so quickly. We (scientists, conservationists, practitioners, citizens) need to be aware of what we are aiming for when we embark on this journey to save the world's oceans--a difficult but not impossible task if we work together.  From left to right: The renowned author Carl Safina, the famous ocean conservationist Sylvia Earle, me, and CubaMar Director, Fernando Bretos. Cuba Marine Research and Conservation Program (CubaMar), a Project of The Ocean Foundation, supports collaborative scientific research between Cuba, the U.S. and neighboring countries, to advance and inform marine conservation policy efforts in Cuba and the Wider Caribbean
By Michele Heller This past June, my co-worker and I set off into the unknown that is Cuba, with Cuba Marine Research and Conservation Program (CubaMar). At the time we were affiliated with The Ocean Foundation (CubaMar is a project of TOF) and were stoked to get out of the office and get our hands dirty. We had a general idea of our itinerary, which consisted of staying in Old Havana for a couple of days and then heading south to Isla de la Juventud, (The Island of Youth) to visit a remote village at the Southern tip called Cocodrilo. This one horse town (OK, fine, three horse town) was established over a 100 years ago by fishers from the Cayman Islands, and the last few direct descendants still speak English today.  Our mission was to assist a small group of conservationists in Cocodrilo, led by our hosts in the village, Reinaldo and Reynaldo (there was some confusion upon first arriving), that are leading the charge to restore the endangered staghorn coral and to develop a marine conservation voluntourism program. As the first of, hopefully, many tourists to come, we timed the trip so that we would be present during the town’s annual Sea Turtle Festival and spent our days exploring the watery realm of Cocodrilo. But first – to get to there!  The journey to Cocodrillo was quite an eventful one! Flying domestically in Cuba is not for the faint of heart and after buying additional tickets on top of the ones we had already purchased and hiring a “fixer” (who may or may not have bribed airline officials), we touched down on Juventud 1.5 days later than we were supposed to. Another 3 hour drive down a bumpy jungle road swarming with giant coconut crabs and we had reached our destination in the middle of the night and rendezvoused with the rest of our group. We awoke that first morning to the sound of roosters calling to the sun rising over the jungle and casting it’s light on a geologists dream: an entire coastline made of fossilized coral reef. Let the adventures begin!
We spent about 5 days snorkeling, free diving and SCUBA diving on Cocodrilo's reefs and in and out of caves along the coastline. Although most of the big fish, sharks and sea turtles have been fished out, the reefs were healthy and full of life, albeit small wonders that require a patient eye. We saw plenty of moray eels, squid, and most wondrous of all, the endangered staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis). Local community members have established a coral restoration nursery and program that they were diligently monitoring and regularly cleaning of debris.   This little town has a lot of spirit and character, and we got to witness that during the Sea Turtle Festival. During the day, the festival focused on the town’s school children. The community leaders created an atmosphere of learning and exploration through videos highlighting the local reefs, games that taught the importance of protecting sea turtles and not fishing for them, and positive reinforcement of the idea of growing up to be environmental stewards and caring for their ocean. Our group helped with decorations, setting up, supplying generously donated brand new school supplies for the kids! It was a wonderful event to witness and to be a part of and I’m so excited to see what this generation of citizen scientists will accomplish.    Cocodrilo is unlike anywhere you’ve ever been and I highly recommend visiting. There is so much potential for the town’s conservation programs, and the fact that this little one horse town (ok fine, three horse town) has a coral restoration program and plans to establish a campus for visitors with classroom and bunks, is a testament to the spirit of this community and their relationship with the ocean. Cuba is an incredibly special place to visit and it’s hard to describe one's experience. The beauty of the country, the people, and vibrant culture can be overshadowed sometimes by a roiling history of revolution and frequent moments lacking any rhyme or reason, but it’s there if you look close enough.  |
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January 2019
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