The actions carried out for eight years by the participants in the international project Connecting Landscapes in the special region for sustainable development (REDS) Bamburanao, in the center of the country, achieve an impact on the conservation of this mountainous ecosystem and improve the quality of life of its inhabitants.
Leonor Méndez Herrera, coordinator of this REDS, highlighted the implementation of an environmental management model that is a tool for the development of sustainable production systems, by establishing procedures for the proper management of natural resources.
She underlined the establishment of a system for the biological corridor that extends from the municipality of Florencia, in the province of Ciego de Ávila, to the Dos Sierras mountain range, in the territory of Remedios, corresponding to the jurisdiction of Villa Clara, achieving a link with the coastal ecosystem.
She referred to the existence of a prioritized area between the Barro Amarillo and La Vega rivers; the only one within the massif where there was no relationship with the riparian areas, therefore, a hydroregulatory strip of approximately three kilometers was reestablished by planting more than 280 species of trees, including fruit, timber and 17 native species.
Méndez Herrera meant as another relevant result the official declaration of two new protected areas, with the category of Outstanding Natural Element (Las Tasajeras and La Canoa-La Chucha hills), contemplated within the geography of Sancti Spiritus.
The former constitute a reservoir of biodiversity and the peasants who inhabit them stand out for their proper management of environmental resources; meanwhile, in La Canoa-La Chucha hills, the most important cave of heat in Cuba is located, where the fruit bat lives, the flagship species of the biological corridor, he said.
She added that in this last mountain range it also has abundant floristic and faunal inventories, favored by the dispersion of seeds carried out by birds and the aforementioned chiropterans.
Progress is being made in the construction of biodigester networks that make it possible to reduce the contaminant load of pig waste and obtain biogas that is used as a direct heat source or for the cogeneration of mechanical or electrical energy.
The completion of the Western network of these devices that supply renewable energy favors the improvement of the quality of the water received by some 49,000 inhabitants and provides biogas to some 29 homes located in the rural communities of the municipality of Yaguajay in Sancti Spiritus.
While the infrastructure that will cover the eastern portion, in the construction phase, will supply this substance to another 33 homes and a school, as long as there is pig production that guarantees sufficient amounts of waste for the operation of the technology, he clarified.
The project contributes to the improvement of the housing fund and is recognized for its comprehensiveness by joining the efforts of various institutions to guarantee the effective protection of biodiversity against current and future threats in mountain landscapes.
Five university centers, 29 primary schools and the communities located in the ZEDS Bamburanao are incorporated, where they know and identify with this initiative.
Sponsored by the United Nations Development Program, the Forestry Business Group, and the Ministries of Agriculture and Science, Technology and Environment, this project provides knowledge and conceives improvements in living and working conditions for the development of sustainable production.
In the country, it also includes the mountainous massifs of Guaniguanico, Guamuhaya and Nipe-Sagua-Baracoa.