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American Ecologists
Discover Cuba’s Virgin Ecosystem
“Carlos, these US ecologists get along very well with the “gallero”
[a breeder of game cocks] so they seem to be more like politicians
interested in how the system works rather than scientists concerned
about how it destroys Cuba… They are characterized by their arrogance
and their apathy, and they ignore the young researchers who approach
them preoccupied by the ecological disasters of the country.”
Comments of a Cuban scientist to the author
By Carlos Wotzkow
Translated by Robert Solera and edited by Jaums Sutton and Agustin
Blazquez
For almost four long decades, Fidel Castro and his revolution exercised
an iron-fisted blockade on all the country's scientists. The
institutional espionage got to such extreme that Cuban researchers with
personal relationships with American colleagues were initially punished
with "private calls to order" if they were discovered; with "public
calls to order" in case of repetition, or with the "expulsion" from
their work center, if the rebel scientist did not heed the Party's
orders. Nevertheless, scientific literature produced in Cuba during the
1960s through 1980s demonstrates that Cuba was a tropical paradise for
the Russian, Czech and German researchers who came from the Soviet
block’s Council of Mutual Economic Assistance, known in Spanish as CAME,
to "teach us" how to do and publish socialist science.
A very close American friend explained to me that Cuba, in view of the
prohibitions and limitations imposed by the Cuban state, represented the
lost mosaic of the Caribbean puzzle and furthermore, potentially a key
territory to explain many of the evolution processes that occurred and
are still occurring the region. For example, the Anolis lizards and
their fossils were of particular interest. But Cuba did not allow
American scientists to freely enter, and they presented all types of
obstacles and expensive Customs taxes to anyone who wanted to visit with
the equipment necessary for their work. It is these restrictions, not
the Embargo as many pretend it to be, that reduces interaction to
letters, contacts through third persons and some timid visits risking
penalty of being fired.
But now the panorama has changed. Now Fidel Castro's regime is the one
that loudly asks Americans to visit and, dutifully, there go a whole
fauna of liberal environmentalists, happy and picturesque, interested in
politicking based on Cuba’s natural beauty. None of them has the
slightest idea of what the Revolution destroyed. On the contrary, all of
them speak about the "effort that characterizes the Revolution in the
ecological realm." Among these happy and political ambassadors of
ecology I have to mention the comments made by Mike Garvey, from WWF of
Canada (to me, rather than World Wildlife Fund, I think it means World
Wide Fraud), that this year asserted "Cuba has become known for its
conservation efforts."1
Nevertheless, interesting news got to me "fresh" from a colleague who
works in a polyvalent museum in Cuba, and who, to his surprise, was
invited to participate in the Coast Ecosystems Conference that was held
in Playa Ancon, under the absolute control of the Enterprise for the
Protection of Flora and Fauna, financially supported by several
ecological institutions of the American Left. According to him, nobody
mentioned the desperate bid that the Cuban government is holding to sell
its seas in portions to the oil searching companies.2 None mentioned the
shame he felt to see "gringos" shaking hands with Commander Guillermo
García Frías, as if he were a defender of nature and not a dealer of
African fauna that he has introduced in Cuba so Castro's guests may
further enjoy themselves in their hunting.
Why is it that the oil that the USA exploits in the Gulf of Mexico is a
threat to the region's ecosystem, while the oil that Castro wishes to
exploit north of Pinar del Rio is not? Would it not be fair that the
associations Center for Marine Conservation, The Windstar Foundation,
Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace USA, National Audubon Society,
Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, etc., protest in a prophylactic way
against the possible spills of crude oil that Castro’s plan could lead
to? Or might it be that the damages occasioned to the “America’s Sea”
(as they call it) by a communist state are less dangerous than the ones
provoked by the capitalist colossus, allowing Castro’s friends to make a
living protesting while divulging hysteric news?
To demonstrate the hypocritical nature of all the ecological
associations that I have just mentioned, an example is due. All of them
are co-participants of the handbook that has the pretense of helping
preserve the Gulf of Mexico3 and it is supposed that all of them
campaign for energy production in an ecological and renewal way. Well,
all signed a document that leaves them open to criticism for the
hydro-electrics they have built in some rivers of the American southern
states because the dams impede the necessary water from reaching the
estuaries. They protest the use of water for irrigation and recommend
some “more ecological” products over some others. In a word, a recipe
that boasts a slogan that I would define as: "Buy what I sell, not what
I consume."
The Cuban government is a signatory of the Cartagena Convention (since
September 15, 1988) and furthermore, it has ratified all the posterior
Protocols (since August 4, 1998) in which it gives its commitment not to
pollute the Great Caribbean. Notwithstanding, when the Venezuelan oil
ship collided near Cayo Largo del Sur, or when Venezuela sends Cuba
one-hull ships more than 25 years old and in violation of Venezuela’s
own standards (as the “Victoria”) full of crude oil, none of these
ecologist organizations make a peep. Wouldn't they know that the
Caribbean currents will no doubt careen to the southern coast of the
USA? Why doesn’t somebody ask Castro how much crude oil spilled into the
Florida Straits when the not unattended Holguín oil pipeline was damaged
last April? How much fuel can go into the water basin thru 100 hectares
flooded with oil?
"Carlos, these US ecologists get along very well with the “gallero” [a
breeder of game cocks] (Guillermo García Frías) et al., so they seem to
be more like politicians interested in how the system works rather than
scientists concerned about how it destroys Cuba. These people didn’t
come to talk about the destruction of nature that is being extinguished
like the flame of a candle in the wind. They are from left-leaning
American Institutions (traditionally addicted to negotiating with
dictator Castro) that are campaigning so the only country on the planet
that has a position more or less coherent toward Cuba lifts the
restrictions to travel and has open access to the tourist industry in
Cuba. They camouflage with such issues as ecotourism, but those are just
pretexts.”
And yes, my friend's words over the telephone merit to be written and
thus obtain a little posterity. Fidel Castro markets and deals debts all
over the world. More than 100 countries have commercial contracts with
Cuba without that having had any contribution to ameliorate neither the
disastrous situation that Cuba goes through (formerly the 7th in the
Americas) nor the scarcities that that dictatorship imposes upon the
people. On top of these insults, several American institutions, like the
Florida Gulf Coast University, or the Institute for the "Sustainability"
(sacred word for the environmentalist religion), have joined the
pro-Castroite propaganda chorus members at Harvard, Berkley and Tulane
and media propagandists like CNN, National Geographic, and the
Smithsonian Institution.
"These (I omit the original "French" word my friend used) are
characterized by arrogance and apathy, and they ignore the young
researchers that get close to them preoccupied by the ecological
disasters of their country". And I must confess that I feel an
incredible sadness, because I know and maintain relationships with very
good American researchers, but I must confront every bit of refuse
published in the USA with an editorial of exquisite quality,
representing those from Cuba who want but cannot make themselves heard.
How can an American scientist speak of "ecological efforts" in Cuba if
he does not have the least idea what has been destroyed during the last
45 years? How can a journalist from Florida write a series of three
articles and ignore a book that I sent him for his information? And if
he does not believe in the experience of one that lived there 30 years,
why should I believe in his fraternity deliriums?
Mr. Ralph Kircher from the Naples Daily News asked me for a copy of my
book Natumaleza Cubana. I sent it to him for free and even with a
message of friendship in it. But his work in favor of science in Cuba
contradicts his own desires. He wished that not all be mixed with
politics, but nature conservation in Cuba would be more effective if in
each article, in each interview, he would choose each word more
carefully and use adequate interlocutors. With his series of three
articles, Kircher proclaims himself to be a gratuitous ambassador of
Fidel Castro’s policies and he ignores the calamity rosary that plague
the people (the main destiny, and frequently forgotten one, of natural
beauty), the same as the multiple limitations that the totalitarian
state creates for the Cuban scientist to preserve the ecosystems of our
archipelago.
Within the sciences, Mr. Kircher, there must also be political ethics
and our scientific community, extremely well formed, would rather have a
little more bibliographic and logistic help rather than you wasting your
time and money for your trip writing about the splendor of a revolution
that does not deserve so much glorification by the media. You can allow
yourself the luxury of writing whatever you feel to be fit because you
live in a free country, but don't tell us that the American embargo to
Cuba is a consequence of 600,000 votes. How can you believe the Cuban
community in Florida to be so powerful, or is it that your intentions
are to blame it? You remind me of the passage in Frankenstein when he
enters in the wise blind man’s hut and burns himself with the boiling
stream of coffee that he was not able to capture in his cup. Only that
in the Cuban case, the stream that you miss is that of the truths told
in words.
If we observe the role that world journalism plays in the protection of
nature, we see that the Kirchner style is not unique. He speaks marvels
about the Revolution and ignores the ecologist’s alerts of his own
country. Speaking of developing countries, all ecologists say that
industrialization is a monster and that the ecosystem suffers its
effects with leaps and bounds. Or, is it just the opposite for countries
like Cuba? Here they would like the civilized nations to send for free
and without delay the same technologies (now not so bad) in order to
preserve nature. It strikes the attention that none of the members of
the board of directors of WWF--none of these ecopolitical organizations
preoccupy or protest the destruction that the Cuban ecosystems have
suffered in Castro's hands. Although while in Cuba to study the
situation, they so much like to eat endemic crocodiles in Cuban tourism
facilities.
I am firmly convinced that if Cubans the world over do not get involved
in Cuba’s ecological problems and do not pronounce openly against all
types of political involvement in matters of the environment, we will
soon be sorry for that regrettable error. We must not be fooled by
illusions. The field of biology is one of the most competitive in the
modern world. What those liberal American and European ecologists want
is simply to get their political agendas a foothold in Cuba’s
sovereignty, to eventually, once the dinosaurian governor has become
extinct, have a hand in controlling the already maltreated ecology. For
that they will use the United Nations and its disastrous "Development
Programs", which are nothing more than a new form of leftist imperialism
funded with budgets gotten through taxes, or grants from politically
interested foundations.
"Heritage of Humanity" is the hyped-up reference they like to use to
refer to parks supposedly kept in a natural state. But they are no more
than a gross interference on the sovereignty of free states. The United
Nations acts openly to end the right of private property to take control
of land under the pretense of providing it protection. The National Park
established within the Zapata Swamp, willingly reduces its protected
areas in the interest of allowing multiple usage. Thus, what before
constituted the largest protected wetland in the Neotropical region
(2400 square kilometers), today conserves about 150 square kilometers as
Biosphere Reserve. And this is just the beginning, because the
pronounced goal “to protect ecosystems” (in accordance with the legal
vocabulary of the New Law of the Nature promoted by the Ministry for
Science, Technology and Environment, known in Spanish as CITMA, and
immediately approved by the Castro’s rubber-stamp National Assembly of
Popular Power), is just a euphemism to which they will be adding
“habitat licenses” of “national interest”.
No one is forced to write about or express an opinion about what he/she
does not believe in. Least of all a scientist. But Cuban scientists, who
constantly confront the members of the American media who are allowed in
Cuba because their reports are favorable, say to the Americans what they
do not dare to say to the Party. They should call those free
interlocutors aside and tell them, "Look, I know that you cannot publish
it because just like me, you must protect your job, but what you are
defending in Cuba is immoral. In Cuba, more game hunting reserves have
been created than nature reserves since the law that pretends to save
our habitat was approved. More than 20 game hunting areas opened
recently inside that what previously were nature reserves. There,
Spaniards, Italians, French and Germans shoot a Florida Drake just like
they shoot a rare specimen of Tundra’s Peregrine Falcon4.
I think that the time has come for Cuban scientists to break their
silence and take advantage of every opportunity to denounce that today
there are more centers dedicated exclusively to the enjoyment of
selected people than those so frequently bemoaned from the Batista era.
Tourists visiting Cuba can fish wherever and whenever they want in any
of the marine sanctuaries prohibited to Cubans. The archipelago of the
Queen’s Gardens is practically property of the Italian tourist
entrepreneurs. “Jara y Cedal” (a program on Spanish TV) has filmed
fishing there for dozens of Barracudas as a normal way to have fun. In
the absence of sharks provoked by the irrational fishing of “Castro's
ecological policy”, one would have to add now this menace that allows
these tourism lords to exterminate those small predators needed in the
platform. Not to mention the hundreds of tons (Cuba has declared less
than two dozen since 2000) of “Trepang” (Holothuridae) that Spaniards
export from Cuba, to the major shame of CITES, the Convention for the
International Trade of Endangered Species.
The work of a scientist is based on data, on the interpretation and on
the material that he is given by others via collaboration. It would be a
good thing for Cuban scientists to demand from the Castro regime
unlimited access to the Internet. Each Cuban scientist must be in
possession of the most recent textbooks related to his discipline, as
this will have a positive affect on his work. Cuban scientists should
have free access to see all editorial hypocrisy that institutions
practice. If a Cuban scientist could see how some in the Whale and
Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) accuse and disqualify the
governments of Japan and Mexico, they would be surprised to know that
with Castro they have a secret dialogue behind the back of the public
that pays their salary. In other words, the communist colleagues must be
treated lovingly and without anyone knowing about it5.
All scientists know that in the world there is a culture of giving
credit for scientific accomplishments. I ask the Cuban scientists to
respect it. And say “No!” to following the orders of the political
commissaries who work in their institutions. And for them to give
respect to and make use of the works that have preceded them—even works
completed by their colleagues in exile. Nobody has the right to
exterminate socially or scientifically someone else's work. Science is
part of a human process and all must respect its collaborative nature.
The discoveries, the hypotheses, the legacies, the denouncing of those
that have preceded us must form part of our literature and our ethics,
notwithstanding the institutional pressures. But above all, Cuban
scientists should not waste the smallest editorial opportunity to pay
tribute to truth.
Cuba is falling apart in bits and pieces and its ecosystems will not be
saved by piety, but by courage. The Cuban scientific community must find
the necessary courage that will allow it to denounce what has been ill
done, that allows them to tell it to the Naples Daily News, et al., and
to the officer in Villa Marista (Cuba’s infamous detention and torture
center in Havana) that might menace them with a disciplinary expedient.
The Cuban scientific community in exile must tell what it knows, take
charge of being an exile and not halfheartedly go back to Cuba each year
in the role of the Wise Man behind closed doors in front of his family.
Those in Cuba who complain of not being able to publish have a ready
outlet. Talk of the human miseries, botanical and zoological, to those
sent from the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic. Tell them
about the carelessness that characterizes a communist regime godfathered
by American universities in California, Florida, and Washington. If they
do not do it, who else can?
Cuban scientists must know that there will come the day in which their
salary will depend on fierce competition. Then they will know what it is
to compete based on results in the laboratory in order to have a job and
a decent salary. Cuban scientists may thus set aside their egotistical
goal of glorification in the media and play an important role in the
protection of Cuban nature from this very moment. Tell the foreign press
all the good that yet can be saved in Cuba, but also tell them what has
been lost. Denounce all that the revolution has cut, hunted, destroyed,
sold, confiscated. Be honest to yourselves. To shut up now and not take
advantage of those ecologists traveling in and out of Cuba to transport
critical information otherwise hidden is an infamy equal to allowing
them to go inside to congratulate themselves with the all so powerful
misgovernment that so consistently degrades this delicate habitat.
Americans have discovered the virgin ecosystems that represent the Cuban
scientific community, as well as its most appreciated endemic species:
the sincerity hospitality, the uninterested collaboration and the
friendship of Cubans. That is why they are so mesmerized and it is
logical that be the case. But I must clarify that our younger scientists
ignore the immense bestiary of egocentrism, falsehood, stealing of data,
and absence of ethics that might characterize many of those honorable
American scientists that today visit Cuba. Their marked interest in
fomenting ecotourism and their propaganda to describe as "ecological
efforts of the revolution" what is only pure and hard habitat
degradation they don't leave me any other alternative than to distrust
their presumed honesty. I refer you to the magazine Science6 so you can
see what I say and while reading it, I wish you a Happy New Year.
Bienne, Enero 12, 2004
Originally published by La Nueva Cuba
Notes
1.- Kircher, Ralph 2003. The Changing Face of Cuba. Three-part series.
Naples Daily News. Florida.
2.- Boadle, Anthony 2003. Cuba hace apuesta millonaria al petróleo del
Golfo de México. Reuters. La Habana (Reuters), Latino Noticias. December
2, 2003.
3.- Mississippi State University Extension Service. The Gulf of Mexico -
"America's Sea" Issues of Environmental Concern. Gulf of Mexico Program.
Citizens' Pollution Prevention Handbook. Document in PDF 22pp.
4.- Wotzkow, Carlos 1998. Natumaleza Cubana. Ediciones Universal. Miami,
Florida. 294 pp.
5.- WDCS. A top officer of the mentioned organization (whose name I omit
out of respect) wrote me an email where he explained that they did
negotiate with Cuba, but without a loud media noise because that is the
appropriate mechanism for the case.
6.- Benditt, John 1995. Conduct in Science. A special News Report. Vol
268. June 23, 1995. pp 1705-1718. |
