Task Life oxygenates central Cuba’s environment

The benefits of Task Life is felt in the province of Ciego de Avila through actions designed to make up for the negative effects of climate change, considered one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today.

Among the achievements of this State program, approved by the Council of Ministers on April 25, 2017, is the identification of relocation areas for houses currently being built or planned for construction in the medium and long term for the benefit of five coastal settlements affected or bound to be affected by the sea level rise.

Housing is under way in those communities of the province where Hurricane Irma caused great damage in September 2017. The new house they will be now in higher spots less exposed to the sea. Meanwhile, the southern municipalities worst hit by the same event will benefit from two buildings of 20 apartments each. Others will eventually be under construction until all the locals are covered.

Task Life was also useful between 2017 and 2020 to the Jardines del Rey tourist resort, from where invasive exotic species such as casuarina (known as river oak) were removed and native ones like pasto niño (whorled dropseed) and mate de costa (coastal jack-bean) were planted to preserve the coastal dunes in this tourist park, one of the most important in the country.

Also noteworthy is the recovery of nine kilometers of beaches with the dumping of sand to make the coastline less vulnerable to extreme weather events.

In these four years, Task Life has also paved the way for the Zaza-Ciego de Avila master canal, which will help increase food production this year and protect the natural environment against salinization and soil degradation, and favor the sugar harvest in the southern part of the region.
Other works completed in the province include the artificial river La Ceiba, a reservoir of 22,000 cubic meters, and injection wells to benefit the aquifer.

The southern part of Ciego de Avila was affected by sea penetrations reaching up to 11.5 kilometers inland.

Task Life is inspired by the thoughts of the historical leader of the Revolution, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, when he stated at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 that the human species is at risk of disappearing.

he people of this province of Ciego de Avila would have certainly done much more by now to tackle climate change, but Cuba is facing many financial and resource limitations, made worse since 2020 by onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.