Exhibition on Cuba's biodiversity to open in New York

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 9 (acn) An exhibition of Cuba´s main ecosystems will be inaugurated next Monday at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), in New York, announced in this city PhD. Maritza García García, president of the Environment Agency (AMA by its Spanish acronym).
It will have a temporary character and will reflect the surprising and unique biological diversity of our country, which has the largest number of species in the Caribbean, possibly with 2.2 percent of the world total, said the expert in a meeting with journalists.
She pointed out that such an exhibition is the result of years of research collaboration and training between institutions in the two countries, including the Cuban Natural History Museum (MHNC by its Spanish acronym), the University of Havana, the Cuban Society of Botany and the Company for Protection of Flora and Fauna.
Garcia mentioned the fact that AMNH explorers frequently visited the national territory, but since 1962 the US economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed a period of 25 years without any expedition to Cuba.
However, she clarified that in the late 1980s, scientists practiced numerous observations on the Royal Woodpecker, an emblematic bird of Cuban avifauna, which activity facilitates the nesting of other birds that use their holes when abandoned.
She added that mutual cooperation with the MHNC and the National Center of Protected Areas made possible in 2015 an expedition to Alejandro de Humboldt National Park, declared Natural Heritage Site and place with the highest biodiversity of the Insular Caribbean.
The exhibition in New York will also cover a sample of northeastern Cuban mountains, as well as the Zapata Swamp, located in the homonymous peninsula in the province of Matanzas, which is the largest insular Caribbean wetland with an approximate space of about 300 000 hectares.