Because Cuba is an archipelago made up by about 4,197 islands (including the two largest: Cuba proper, and Isla de la Juventud), [1] the combined area of coast results in 5,746 square kilometers (3570.4 square miles); most of it (2,200 square miles or 5,967 square kilometers) being covered by mangrove forest. [2] These mangrove forests make up 20 percent of the forested areas in the island, covering a total of 4.8 percent of the territory. [3]
Cuban mangrove forests' top layer is made up of 4 tree species: Rhizophora mangle (red mangrove), Avicennia germinans (black mangrove), Laguncularia racemosa (white mangrove) and Conocarpus erectus (button mangrove). Depending on several factors, including water salinity, fresh water flow, coast shape and water depth, the size and distribution of those 4 species can differ. In some places, a mono-forest (made up by just one species) is found; in other places, all 4 species occur naturally. Sizes vary from very tall forests with a canopy at 15 meters (49.21 feet) of altitude, or as small as shrubs no taller than 2 meters (6.56 feet). [4]
The mangrove forest is also home to many other botanical species; they are usually identified as “associated species”. The most predominant are Thespesia populnea (portia tree), Hibiscus tiliaceus (sea hibiscus), Bontia daphnoides (sea olive), Haematoxylum campechianum (Bloodwood), Bravaisia tubiflora (hulube), Dalbergia ecastophyllum (dalbergia) and several species of trees from the Leucaena genera. Depending on the salinity, some areas in the forest may be formed by understory species adapted to high levels of salt, such as Acrostichum aureum (golden leather fern), and Batis maritima (saltwort)
Among the branches of the larger trees live a large amount of epiphyte plants of the Tillandsia genera - usually called by their Taino name curujeyes in Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean islands, and referred as bromeliads in English - as well as many types of orchids from the Encyclia, Tolumnia , and Vanilla genera.
Cuban mangroves are well known spots for many migratory and endemic species of birds, as well as many fish, sponges, crustaceans and mollusks. Cuban mangroves are also the home of choice of the endemic Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer), Cuban rock iguana (Cyclura nubila), and the Cuban hutias (Capromys family).
A complete list of all botanical and animal species associated with a Cuban mangrove forest is described in the paper “Ecosistemas de Manglar en el Archipiélago Cubano" by Leda Menéndez Carrera and José M. Guzmán Menéndez, edited and distributed by the Cuban Science Academy and UNESCO.
Historically speaking, mangroves were a key factor in the development of the aboriginal cultures that populated Cuba before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. Aboriginal communities established first on maritime coast around mangrove areas where the sea and rivers meet. For centuries those types of locations would provide them with a rich source of sustenance. [4]
Later on, during colonial and Republican times, mangroves were put to commercial use. Over 400 years of heavy harvesting put a pressure on the ecosystem. Either used as textile dyes, tannin for pharmaceutical industries, lumber for furniture, charcoal, even as a popular wine flavoring. [5] [6]
A special blow to the well-being of the mangrove forests was executed in the 1960s, when the current government came to power. At the moment, the Cuban authorities realized the supply of fresh water for the increasing Cuban population had to be solved one way or another. As a tropical nation, Cuba has only two seasons: wet and dry. Over the rainy season, the island is constantly battered by hurricanes, as opposed to the 5 to 6 months of dry season, bringing heavy drought. In order to solve those issues, over 969 reservoirs were created, therefore reducing the fresh water flow that keeps mangroves healthy on the coastline.
The reservoir construction policy has claimed half a century later an unforeseen victim: mangroves. In some places of the island, such as in Batabanó, these ecosystems have been critically severed, and as a result hundreds of kilometers of coast that were arable or populated have been claimed by rising sea levels, especially during storm season, proving that what was believed to be a solution, has become instead a huge problem. [3]
The Cuban government has attempted to mitigate this issue by quickly enforcing new conservation laws in order to correct the issues that mangroves and other inland ecosystems have suffered. In 2013, environmental authorities started a program in order to defend and recover the first line of defense against advancing waters and effects of salinization of farmlands, as well as attempting to fix their mangrove forests.
A moratorium on mangrove foresting was declared and ways to reforest and restore fresh water intake have been designed. [5]
Even with the negative impacts from 500 years of environmentally irresponsible actions, Cuban mangroves are still the most conserved in the Caribbean, making up 69 percent of this region's coastal forests, as well as being the most well preserved. Even if areas around the former province of Havana (now the provinces of Artemisa and Mayabeque) are critical, mangrove coverage in other areas like Ciénaga de Zapata, Jardines de la Reina and Jardines del Rey has improved.
Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater and fresh water together, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. The word comes from the Middle Dutch root brak. Certain human activities can produce brackish water, in particular civil engineering projects such as dikes and the flooding of coastal marshland to produce brackish water pools for freshwater prawn farming. Brackish water is also the primary waste product of the salinity gradient power process. Because brackish water is hostile to the growth of most terrestrial plant species, without appropriate management it is damaging to the environment.
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have special adaptations to take in extra oxygen and to remove salt, which allow them to tolerate conditions that would kill most plants. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in several plant families. They occur worldwide in the tropics and subtropics and even some temperate coastal areas, mainly between latitudes 30° N and 30° S, with the greatest mangrove area within 5° of the equator. Mangrove plant families first appeared during the Late Cretaceous to Paleocene epochs, and became widely distributed in part due to the movement of tectonic plates. The oldest known fossils of mangrove palm date to 75 million years ago.
Sundarbans is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. Spread across parts of India and Bangladesh, this forest is the largest mangrove forest in the world. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh's division of Khulna to the Hooghly River in India's state of West Bengal. It comprises closed and open mangrove forests, land used for agricultural purpose, mudflats and barren land, and is intersected by multiple tidal streams and channels. Sundarbans is home to the world's largest area of mangrove forests. Four protected areas in the Sundarbans are enlisted as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, viz. Sundarbans West (Bangladesh), Sundarbans South (Bangladesh), Sundarbans East (Bangladesh) and Sundarbans National Park (India).
The Federal Dependencies of Venezuela encompass most of Venezuela's offshore islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Venezuela, excluding those islands that form the State of Nueva Esparta and some Caribbean coastal islands that are integrated with nearby states. These islands, with a total area of 342 square kilometres, are sparsely populated – according to the preliminary results of the 2011 Census only 2,155 people live there permanently, with another hundred from Margarita Island who live there seasonally to engage in fishing. Local government is officially under the authority of Central government in Caracas, although de facto power is often held by the heads of the sparse and somewhat isolated communities that decorate the territories.
The Gulf of Panama is a gulf of the Pacific Ocean off the southern coast of Panama, where most of eastern Panama's southern shores adjoin it. The Gulf has a maximum width of 250 kilometres, a maximum depth of 220 metres (722 ft) and the size of 2,400 square kilometres (930 sq mi). The Panama Canal connects the Gulf of Panama with the Caribbean Sea, thus linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The Panamanian capital Panama City is the main urban centre on the gulf shore.
Garrido's hutia is a small, critically endangered, rat-like mammal found in coastal mangrove forests on Cuba and nearby islands. It is rarely seen and may be extinct. It is a member of the hutia subfamily (Capromyinae), a group of rodents native to the Caribbean that are mostly endangered or extinct. The only other species in its genus, the Desmarest's hutia, is also found only on Cuba.
Rhizophora mangle, also known as the red mangrove, is a salt-tolerant, small-to-medium sized evergreen tree restricted to coastal, estuarine ecosystems along the southern portions of North America, the Caribbean as well as Central America and tropical West Africa. Its viviparous "seeds", in actuality called propagules, become fully mature plants before dropping off the parent tree. These are dispersed by water until eventually embedding in the shallows.
The Maranhão mangroves is a mangrove ecoregion of northern Brazil. It supports half of the shorebird population of the country. The combination of flat land, heavy rainfall and high tides causes the mangroves to extend up to 40 kilometres (25 mi) inland, where they are interspersed with other rainforest species.
Sabana-Camagüey is an archipelago that lies on Cuba's north-central Atlantic coast. It is located off the northern coast of the provinces of Matanzas, Villa Clara, Sancti Spíritus, Ciego de Ávila and Camagüey, and is bounded to the north by the Atlantic Ocean, specifically by the Nicholas Channel and Old Bahama Channel.
Before drainage, the Everglades, a region of tropical wetlands in southern Florida, were an interwoven mesh of marshes and prairies covering 4,000 square miles (10,000 km2). The Everglades is both a vast watershed that has historically extended from Lake Okeechobee 100 miles (160 km) south to Florida Bay, and many interconnected ecosystems within a geographic boundary. It is such a unique meeting of water, land, and climate that the use of either singular or plural to refer to the Everglades is appropriate. When Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote her definitive description of the region in 1947, she used the metaphor "River of Grass" to explain the blending of water and plant life.
The San Felipe hutia, also known as the little earth hutia, is small, critically endangered, rat-like mammal found on the small island of Cayo de Juan Garcia off the southwest coast of Cuba. It was discovered in 1970 and is possibly extinct. Little is known about the species, except that it lives in swamps and coastal mangrove forests. It is a member of the hutia subfamily (Capromyinae), a group of stout rodents native to the Caribbean that are mostly endangered or extinct.
Salt ponds are a natural feature of both temperate and tropical coastlines. These ponds form a vital buffer zone between terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Contaminants such as sediment, nitrates and phosphates are filtered out by salt ponds before they can reach the ocean. The depth, salinity and overall chemistry of these dynamic salt ponds fluctuate depending on temperature, rainfall, and anthropogenic influences such as nutrient runoff. The flora and fauna of tropical salt ponds differ markedly from those of temperate ponds. Mangrove trees are the dominant vegetation of tropical salt pond ecosystems, which also serve as vital feeding and breeding grounds for shore birds.
The Guianan mangroves (NT1411) is a coastal ecoregion of southeastern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and Brazil. The mangroves provide an important habitat for migrating birds that winter in the area. Large areas are intact, although they are threatened by destruction of the trees for timber and to make way for agriculture, and from upstream agricultural and industrial pollution.
The Amapá mangroves (NT1402) is an ecoregion along the Atlantic coast of the state of Amapá in Brazil. The low coastal plain has been formed from recent sedimentation, including sediments deposited by the rivers and sediments carried northward from the mouth of the Amazon River by strong currents and deposited by the tides. The extensive mangroves grow on the newly formed coastal mudflats and along the edges of estuaries. They merge into freshwater várzea flooded forests further inland. The ecoregion is generally well-preserved, although excessive extraction of natural resources including timber and shrimps is a concern.
The Pará mangroves (NT1427) is an ecoregion along the Atlantic coast of the state of Pará in Brazil. They constitute the western extension of the Maranhão mangroves ecoregion. The mangroves are relatively intact, although they are under some pressure from agriculture and logging.
The Esmeraldas-Pacific Colombia mangroves (NT1409) is an ecoregion of mangrove forests along the Pacific coast of Colombia and Ecuador. It is threatened by human population growth, leading to over-exploitation for wood and clearance for farming and aquaculture.
The Coastal Venezuelan mangroves ecoregion covers the salt-water mangrove forests along the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean coast of Venezuela, from Cocinetas Basin to the edge of the Caño Manamo River and the Orinoco Delta in the east. It is one of the largest mangrove ecoregions in South America, with an area of 5,698 km2, and stretching across over 400 km of Venezuelan coastline.
The Petenes mangroves ecoregion covers mangrove habitat along the Gulf of Mexico coast of southern Mexico, where Campeche state and Yucatan state meet, centering on the Celestun Lagoon inland from the barrier-island town of Celestún. Because the region has relatively little rainfall and no rivers feeding the lagoons, the freshwater to support the mangrove ecosystem springs from underground aquifers. The area is important for migratory birds, and as a nesting area for sea turtles. The area around the Celestun Lagoon is protected by the Ría Celestún Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, and Los Petenes Biosphere Reserve in Campeche.
The Trinidad mangroves ecoregion covers the separate mangrove forest areas on the coast of the island of Trinidad, in the country of Trinidad and Tobago. The character of the mangroves is affected by the large amount of fresh water flowing out of the Orinoco River and Amazon River to the south, which flow northwest around the island. The mangroves of Trinidad are found on all coasts, and are usually in the estuaries of rivers, but also found in coastal lagoons.
The Usumacinta mangroves ecoregion covers the mangrove forests ont the Gulf Coast of Mexico, around the margins of the Laguna de Términos. The "Ends" in the name refer to the mouths of the rivers that empty into the lagoon, including the Usumacinta River. This region, which is due south of the mouth of the Mississippi River across the Gulf of Mexico, receives an estimated one-third of the wintering birds migrating on the Mississippi Flyway. It is estimated that the lagoon supports 90 endangered species.
Republic of Cuba is a conglomeration of the main island of Cuba, the Isle of Youth and about 4,195 small islands and islets.