Cuban experts restore coastal dunes at Jardines del Rey

CIEGO DE AVILA, Cuba, Apr 9 (ACN) With the rehabilitation of the coastal dunes near the Gran Marena Cayo Coco Hotel, main venue of the 42nd International Tourism Fair FITCuba 2024, to be held from May 2 to 5, the Center for Environmental Engineering and Biodiversity (Ciba by its Spanish acronym) from the central province of Ciego de Avila begins this year the provision of scientific-technical services aimed at promoting sustainable development in the Jardines del Rey.

Executives of the Ministry of Tourism recognized the efforts of specialists and workers in the extraction of invasive exotic plants and the reestablishment of native vegetation in the aforementioned sand mounds, actions that will favor biodiversity and strengthen these structures, recognized as a natural barrier against extreme hydrometeorological events.

Javier Gonzalez Garcia, deputy director of Research of Ciba, subordinated to the Environment Agency of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, highlighted that they extract significant volumes of naturalized exotic plants, mainly the one known as guacalote, which could produce changes in the composition, structure and functioning of these ecosystems, with risks for the biological diversity.

In the effort to restore the flora of the area, they planted more than 500 postures of mate de costa, cultivated in the experimental nursery of Ciba through the technology of reproduction in tubetes, for which researchers and workers use different methods that allow to conceive this and other species of the coast.
Gonzalez Garcia added that for reforestation they also replant native and abundant species on the dune, such as beach rice and coastal sweet potato.

For her part, Yamile Jimenez Peña, director of Ciba, said exclusively to the Cuban News Agency that this action responds to the new portfolio of scientific-technical services offered by that institution for the tourism sector, in addition to being linked to the international project Sustainable Tourism, which has in the sun and beach destination Jardines del Rey one of its two sites of direct intervention in Cuba.

Likewise, the reestablishment of native vegetation in the area is associated with the objectives of the project Rehabilitation of coastal dunes in Jardines del Rey, an alternative for disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change.

During 2023 and as part of the dune rehabilitation project in the country's second most important sun and beach destination, Ciba worked on the restoration of the vegetation cover on the mounds of Playa Pilar, declared since 2010 as a protected area with the category of Outstanding Natural Element.

Located in Cayo Guillermo and part of one of the best tourist resorts in the world, it is the largest dune system in Cuba and the insular Caribbean, with a height that varies between 13 and 16 meters above sea level.