FAO confirms technical assistance to Cuban gulf

 HAVANA, Cuba, Jul 23 (ACN) The FAO Cuba office will continue helping with a project designed to protect marine biodiversity in the Gulf of Guacanayabo, in the province of Granma, through the management of fishery and other marine-coastal resources.

Implemented by the Fisheries Research Center (CIP) and funded by the Global Environment Facility, the project intends to increase economic options for and improve the quality of life of local communities, with emphasis on the empowerment of women who work in the fishing industry, and to contribute to fisheries sustainability by improving local ecological balance and biodiversity based on the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries and Aquaculture, a strategy promoted by FAO to boost planning, development and management in this field.

Underlying this effort is Cuba’s Natural Resources and Environment System Act approved in May 2022 to curb the loss of biological diversity, which is in line with the National Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutritional Security Act.

More than 55 percent of the Caribbean's endemic species coexist on the insular shelf of the Gulf of Guacanayabo, home to some of the region's most abundant and best-preserved mangroves, seagrass beds and reefs where around 979 marine species live.

The main problems in this area, shared with Colombia, the United States, Costa Rica, Jamaica and other countries, are related to the loss of marine-coastal biodiversity and the decline of marine fisheries as a result of unsustainable practices, environmental degradation and the impacts of climate change.