by Bill Belleville
It is low tide along the southern shore of Cuba, and I am in a small boat headed for the isolated island chain conquistadores once named Jardines de la Reina---Gardens of the Queen. A cold front moving down from Florida has stoked the gentle southeasterly winter trade winds into a froth-spitting rage and I am eager to get out of the open sea and into the protection of these low limestone cayos.
Our whaler, trimmed and throttled down hard, crosses the shallow bar and planes over the thin, clear waters, beyond the high sandy berms that mark the outer edge of this island maze. The truncated dunes are covered with stunted silver and thatch palms, driftwood and sea purslane and dotted with the burrows of land iguanas.
Into the lee of the dunes we go, back a couple hundred years or more in time. It is a look at what Florida and its own string of southern Keys were like before they were covered with concrete and bridges and Golden Arches. This archipelago of Cuban islands is as feral today as it was when the Spanish first named it.
So too are most of the other isles in chains scattered off both the southern and northern coasts---from the Canerreos to the Sabana and Camaguey archipelagos. Together, they comprise the largest collection of undeveloped islands in the Caribbean. They are an oasis amidst the upscale, umbrella-drink resorts that now blanket much of the region.
I am here for a month, exploring the shore of Cuba with an oceanographic expedition. The scientists aboard are looking for new fish; I am looking for signs of the real Cuba---the complex society that exists outside the one-dimensional media portrayal of this place as the haven of the enemy.
Before I left, I reviewed both the Internet and the local public library for references on Cuba. I found hundreds dealing with politics and history---but only two themed to the environment.
This is odd because Cuba -- the largest slab of land in the Caribbean Basin -- is an integral part of a larger ecology that touches the rim of Central and South America and extends throughout the Gulf of Mexico to Florida and the Southeastern US. What happens here has a profound impact on the rest of the region.
Yet this Cuba has been treated as a virtual environmental black hole by our government. It's as if the island has been lifted whole off the natural map. Although scientists from Cuba and the US quietly share information, zealous anti-Castro Cubans -- and their political allies -- see to it that official scientific contacts are minimized. There is no Cuban ecological story we are allowed to hear that comes without a partisan, melodramatic message.
The mainstream media generally oblige, reporting only on the Cuban environment when disaster is simplified enough for readers to understand. Any catastrophic threats must be blamed on Castro. The resumed construction of a Russian-era nuclear power plant near Cienfluegos, for instance, qualifies as news; the cuisanarting of the rare natural history of the place by wealthy Canadian and Italian investors does not.
In this reactive, jingoistic world, Fidel Castro is simply the caricature of the bad guy and we prosperous Norteamericanos are caricatures of the good ones. Yet life inside these remote waters around me has been creating its own complex politics for centuries. It is consensus building of the most absolute kind, one that happens with each new spawn of nassau grouper and each new egg-hatch of spiny lobster, a reality stoked by the rise and fall of the tide, the slosh of the currents. We share in this consensus, whether we like it or not. That's because we are not only downwind from Cuba, we are downstream as well.
While our own lobster fishery back in Florida is heavily overfished, the lobster catch in Cuba is regulated for sustainability. Healthy, egg-bearing females as well as juveniles are strictly protected. Each year, lobster traps and divers off Florida virtually clean the sea of dinner-plate sized shellfish. And each year, newly-hatched spiny larvae from Cuba float across the Straits and settle to the bottom along the Keys and South Florida.
The implication of all this is far more than just a job for our lobster fishermen or a tasty dinner for our sport divers. We are also at the mercy of the water column in which this valuable plankton floats. The current that brings us baby fish and lobster can also bring us a witches brew of land-based pollutants---including pesticides and fertilizers, as well as sediments.
The good news is the nearshore waters of Cuba are generally clean, for now. Fidel -- who touts Cuba as "an environmental haven" -- would have us believe the higher values of communism have done this. And it is true that there are 84 national parks, four "biosphere reserves", and a number of protected marine areas along the 5,000 mile coastline. Government rules keep the lobster fishery sustainable, and a no-spearfishing law protects larger easy-to-shoot species like grouper.
But there is also a lot of simple benign neglect: no development, no damage. If Cuba's environment is as shrink-wrapped as the shark-finned autos that cruise the streets of Havana, it's more likely the result of depression rather than eco-stewardship.
Fidel is now 71; when he leaves and/or when the 40-year-old embargo is lifted, will this ethic be enough to resist the prosperity that boatloads of American investment dollars promise? Or will Cuba resume its pre-Castro era trend of becoming a recreational colony for its northern neighbor?
Some analysts, like Wake Forest professor Charles Longino, Jr., author of "Retirement Migration in America," think so. Says Longino: "Baby boomers, to retire in the next decade, will be searching south of the border for cheaper housing and labor. A land rush in Cuba will follow soon after the U.S. embargo is lifted, and a tourism and retiree boom will take place, picking up where Batista left off 40 years ago..."
Today, the Helms-Burton Act bars entry to the US by any shareholder or officer of company doing business with or on land expropriated from American citizens. Yet, despite Helms-Burton, a Canadian company just signed an agreement to undertake the largest foreign investment ever, a $400 million deal to build 11 resort hotels, two golf courses, and a a generous sprinkling of other tourist attractions. Along the remote northern cayos east of the tourist ghetto of Verdadero, causeways are already being built to link remote islets with the mainland.
Whatever happens, it will be up to the American media to take a more realistic and courageous look at the true state of the Cuban environment. Castro is not all bad -- and new investment is not all good. There is plenty of middle ground to be yet explored. But do not expect much moderation if the media -- and the rest of us --continue to be intimidated by zealots chomping at the bit to remake post-Castro Cuba into one more neo-colonial tourist trap.
Bill Belleville is an award-winning magazine writer and filmmaker specializing in marine ecology and adventure travel; he has just completed a non-fiction book, The St. Johns: The Unseen River. You can reach him at billybx@gate.net.
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