Cuba Applies for New Biosphere Reserve

Cuba Applies for New Biosphere Reserve

Cuba will declare the Sierra de los Organos mountain range, which
includes Vinales National Park and 11 protected areas, a biosphere
reserve, after the approval of the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

A specialist from the Environment Research Center (ECOVIDA), Roberto
Novo, told the Juventud Rebelde newspaper that the proposal was
presented to the Cuban Committee of the program "El hombre y la
biosfera" (man and biosphere).

Sierra de los Organos, located in the municipalities of Mantua, Guane,
San Juan y Martinez, Minas, Viñales and La Palma, possesses the biggest
underground systems in Cuba and some of the biggest in Latin America, as
well as limestone mogotes, valleys, and rivers.

This territory also hosts a large extinct biodiversity, made up of bone
remains of unique animals, like eagles, owls, giant Cuban solenodons,
monkeys, and bats that lived in the Caribbean islands during the
Pleistocene and Holocene eras; and holds more than 1,200 vegetable and 160
animal species.

If UNESCO approves the proposal, the Sierra de los Organos, would become
the seventh biosphere reserve in Cuba. The rest are: the Sierra del
Rosario, the Guanahacabibes Penninsula, the Baconao Park, the Cuchillas
del Toa, the Cienaga de Zapata and Buenavista.

http://www.radioangulo.cu/en/news/cuba/11411-cuba-applies-for-new-biosphere-reserve.html