Cuba announces innovative project for biodiversity and human health

HAVANA, Cuba, May 16 (ACN) The Cuban Environment Agency (AMA by its Spanish acronym) announced in Havana the promotion of a new project called Thalassia testudinum, one of the species that are part of the Cuban seagrasses.

It is an initiative aimed at its conservation, sustainable use, exploitation of its anticancer properties in the development of pharmaceutical products, the institution told the Cuban News Agency.

It added that it has the collaboration of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA by its Spanish acronym) of Cuba.

With a 4-year duration, it continued, its actions will support the culmination of scientific research to form the dossier to request a clinical trial of a pharmaceutical product and will accompany the design of management protocols and recommendations for the conservation and sustainable use of seagrasses by local communities.

These results can be achieved through the participation of scientific institutions, the Cuban pharmaceutical industry and the community of Rincon de Guanabo, in Havana.

Its application will contribute to the strengthening of the national regulatory framework for the implementation in the country of the Nagoya Protocol (Japan) on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, known by the acronym ABS, to which Cuba adhered in 2015, after depositing at the UN headquarters in New York its supporting documents.

Thalassia testudinum is one of the most recurrent seagrass species on the coast of Havana and the Caribbean, where its meadows protect the coast against the effect and intensity of waves in the event of extreme hydrometeorological phenomena, serve as habitat for other growing marine species, as a food source and contribute to regulate carbon levels in the atmosphere through its absorption or sequestration.

The Thalassia project is implemented by the Environment Agency through the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICIMAR) with the support of UNDP, and involves several national institutions that are key to its success, such as the Office of Environmental Regulation and Safety (ORSA), the Center for Marine Research (CIM by its Spanish acronym), belonging to the University of Havana, and Laboratorios Oriente, part of Cuba's biopharmaceutical industry business group (BioCubaFarma),

AMA is one of CITMA's three agencies, the others being the Nuclear Energy and Advanced Technologies Agency and the Social and Humanistic Sciences Agency.