I am inside a tiny, 1-person submarine beneath the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles offshore from the Alaskan coast. There are 1,300 feet of water between me and the surface. I’m here as part of a Greenpeace-led expedition to shed new light on the unexplored depths here.

It’s freezing cold, completely dark, and forbidding — and it’s utterly beautiful.

• I’ve seen deep sea corals at nearly 2,000 feet, defiantly wearing their brilliant pink colors across a dark, brown and gray seascape; some of the corals here may be over 2,000 years old.
• I’ve seen prehistoric-looking fish patrolling the dark waters of these depths.
• I’ve seen hungry, voracious squid, rocketing toward my sub’s lights, probing my sub’s surface for something to swallow.
• I’ve seen the fine threads that hold an ecosystem together, like how tiny shrimp and other creatures, seeking sanctuary from the powerful undersea currents, eagerly gather in the depressions in the bottom left by flatfish like halibut and skates, each bearing a perfect outline of the fish that previously lay there.
• I’ve seen the current carrying countless tiny and microscopic plankton, and with my lights out, witnessed these creatures light up the darkness with hypnotic constellations yellow-green light.
• And I’ve seen the unmistakable mark of humanity’s hand, in the form of huge plowed swaths of bottom where little grows, the telltale scars of trawling for fish, here in the place where half of the U.S. fish catch comes from.

I believe there are important lessons for us down here. Lessons on how we live our lives high above and far away from this place. But they’re not just lessons about science. They’re lessons of our own humanity.

Here in this tiny sub, I’m trying to comprehend an enormous, complex tapestry in the darkness. And in the vastness, I feel small, awed by each sight around me, overwhelmed by how much we still don’t know. More than anything, I feel a strong sense of humility, my own self-importance paled against the grandeur of this place, our planet, and the knowledge to come in the centuries ahead.

Humility is perhaps one of the most important lessons from this place. It allows us to see beyond ourselves, to truly perceive the world around us with wonder. Yet it’s a quality strangely lacking from too many of our leaders today, whose arrogance short-circuits our human quest for truth, supplanting reason with rhetoric. True leadership demands the bravery to seek the truth, a curious mind to fashion a better way forward, and objectivity, to admit regrets.

I truly hope we can reawaken our unique and precious human qualities of wonder, curiosity and humility, helping our children spend less of their summers learning how to take a standardized test, and more learning how to explore the real world around them.

By the end of my dive a few hours from now, my tiny sub will have illuminated but a few new corners of this vast place. With each tantalizing glimpse come new insights and a little more of the story this ornate tapestry tells. I believe there are life lessons in countless corners of the world around us. We just need to do what humans do best: Look around and be curious.

I wrote most of this short essay while piloting the DeepWorker submersible below the Bering Sea in 2007. It was originally submitted for NPR’s “This I Believe” series and 3 years later, reprinted here.

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This Week’s Guest: John Hocevar

This week's guest: John Hocevar, Oceans Campaign Leader, Greenpeace USA

John Hocevar knew that he wanted to protect the world’s oceans from the first time he saw the beach when he was four years old. Since that time, the marine biologist has worked on a host of ocean conservation issues from protecting the habitat of endangered sea turtles in Florida to teaching marine biology and environmental science to students. John has extensive experience in coral reef conservation, and worked with Coral Cay Conservation to develop a coastal management plan for the Government of Belize. In addition to ocean conversation work, John has spent time organizing students around various environmental and social justice issues. Before coming to Greenpeace in 2004, John was the founder and executive director of Students for a Free Tibet.

Additional information: Greenpeace.org

Tip of the Week

Don’t pour hazardous liquids down the drain!! Contact your local government for instructions in your area. According to Montgomery County, Maryland: Let latex paints dry out first, then dispose of normally. Dry oil-based paints, then dispose as hazardous waste.

The Ocean Doctor airs weekly on WebTalkRadio.net. Want to listen on your iPod, iPhone or mp3 player? Download the mp3 file or subscribe on iTunes and don’t miss a single episode. See the complete list of episodes.

Submit a question and I’ll try to answer it on the air. Even better, record your question or comment on our special message line and I might play it on the air. Call: (805) 619-9194. You can also leave questions and comments for this episode below.

Like the show? Learn how to become a sponsor.

The Ocean Doctor airs weekly on WebTalkRadio.net. Want to listen on your iPod, iPhone or mp3 player? Download the mp3 file or subscribe on iTunes and don’t miss a single episode. See the complete list of episodes.

Submit a question and I’ll try to answer it on the air. Even better, record your question or comment on our special message line and I might play it on the air. Call: (805) 619-9194. You can also leave questions and comments for this episode below.

Like the show? Learn how to become a sponsor.

Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys

On July 18, 1975, the tanker Garbis spilled 1,500 to 3,000 barrels of crude oil into the warm, turquoise, coral-rich waters roughly 26 miles south-southwest of the Marquesas Keys, Florida. The oil was blown ashore along a 30-mile stretch of the Florida Keys, east of Key West. I was 16 and enjoying my second summer at Seacamp, a marine science camp on Big Pine Key. Rumors of the spill raced throughout the campus until finally, instructor James Smithson decided to find out for himself what menace might be approaching. He took a small away team aboard his 21-foot Mako, “Isurus,” and made haste south toward the reef tract. We waited impatiently for word back as the sun fell to the horizon and scattered its tranquil orange glow across the water. What I saw next filled me with dread. The Isurus entered the harbor, its white hull stained with enormous swaths of dark brown oil. In that moment the menace was no longer abstract, and to my young mind, everything we treasured — the corals, the mangroves, the fish, the turtles –was on the brink of extermination.

More bad news: The tides were predicted to bring the oil in toward shore overnight. But what could we do — a bunch of unruly long-haired kids? Simple. Seacamp is a science camp, so we would do science. I was among the older students and felt lucky to be included in a group of students and instructors shuttled to the south side of the island to do transect studies along the south-facing shores and tidepools. With measuring tapes, pencils, clipboard, flashlights and bug spray — lots of bug spray — we’d carefully measure each and every critter in each and every crevice so that if the oil hit, we’d have both a before and after picture. We couldn’t protect our shores, but we could hopefully learn from them. We stayed out the entire evening — it was exhausting and exhilarating.

At morning’s light there was no sign of the oil. It never arrived. I never really learned where it ultimately went. In retrospect, it was the most glorious waste of time I ever spent. I had never felt so strongly focused and such a sense of camaraderie with any group before. We were off our collective asses doing something constructive in the face of a terrible situation, in hindsight a powerful lesson for a teenager. Years later I found a study that indicated that the oil had come ashore in some areas, and several habitats were affected, killing echinoderms, oysters and mangroves.

Blue Hill Consolidated School, Maine

During my “50-States” tour and my meetings with students around the country, I am gratified to see their love and concern for the oceans, even among students who have never seen an ocean before. But I’m also pained that after decades of arrogance, carelessness and treating the oceans more like it belongs to large corporations than as the public trust that it is, it seems that we’ve failed to learn our lessons and have burdened our children with an environmental disaster of historic proportions, the effects of which will no doubt still be felt when they’re raising kids of their own. But if my generation didn’t get it right, I’m still hopeful that the next one will. This is a whopper of a lesson to learn from and change will come from it. But most of all, I’m buoyed by the kids themselves, like the young student at Maine’s Blue Hill Consolidated School who raised her hand during our discussion of the oil spill and, pointing to her classmates, asked simply, “What can we do?

Cuba's Northwestern Coast Along the Gulf of Mexico

For the most up-to-date information on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill’s potential impacts on Cuba, please visit our special “Cuba at Risk” page.

Since its discovery of oil and natural gas reserves in the Florida straits, Cuba’s preparations for full-scale offshore oil and gas development has raised alarm in the United States, particularly in Florida where it is estimated that much of a catastrophic spill originating in Cuba would be swept by Gulf currents.  Ironically, it is now Cuba that faces the threat of a massive oil spill by the United States. The disastrous oil spill from the BP Deepwater Horizon now threatens Cuba, the largest and most biologically diverse island in the Caribbean, due to those same Gulf currents. To make matters worse, the economic embargo imposed upon Cuba by the United States decades ago makes collaboration and coordination exceedingly difficult during this crisis.

Research area in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters

For the past decade we have been working with our colleagues at the University of Havana’s Center for Marine Research (Centro de Investigaciones Marinas, CIM) to conduct research and conservation projects in Cuba’s coastal areas. Since 2002, our work has focused in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico waters where CIM has been conducting the first-ever comprehensive studies of this little-known area. What we are learning is that this region is incredibly rich with healthy corals, fish and serves as critical habitat for imperiled species such as sea turtles, manatees and sharks.

Oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon threatens Cuba's marine life and habitat. (AP Photo)

The catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from the BP Deepwater Horizon presents a potentially grave and unprecedented threat to Cuba’s marine life and coastal areas. Not only would this be devastating to Cuba’s marine life, but given the biological connections present in the Gulf of Mexico, such an impact could affect a myriad of species, including fish, sea turtles, dolphins, manatees, sharks, corals inhabiting the waters of the U.S., Mexico and beyond.  Currents  carry fish larvae from Cuba into U.S. waters, making protection of Cuba’s coastal ecosystems vital to the health of U.S. fish populations.

The Gulf of Mexico "Loop Current" (Source: NOAA)

The primary risk to Cuba comes from the trajectory of the “Loop Current,” a prominent but very variable feature of the Gulf of Mexico. Should the oil become swept up by the swift Loop Current, it could end up in Cuban waters within a matter of days, impacting coastal areas still recovering from the impacts of 2008 hurricanes, Gustav and Ike.

In 2007, a tri-national collaboration was formed among the three countries bordering the Gulf of México (Cuba, México and the United States) to elevate collaboration in marine research and conservation to a new level. Sharing of information is central in this collaboration and since the scope of this disaster became evident, our collaboration has mobilized in order to provide our Cuban colleagues with the best information possible in order to plan for potential impacts and deal with them should they occur. A related page on this site has been set up for the purpose of sharing detailed information, including technical reports and satellite imagery and interpretation.

Learn More:

A Blueprint of Collaboration — and Friendship — With Cuba

Expedition to Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico

Historic Meeting Unites Cuba and the U.S., Taking Collaboration on Ocean Research & Conservation to a New Level

Blog Post: OMG, I Thought You Were Dead!

Blog Post: Cuba Loses Its Mother Ocean

Blog Post: Can Cuba’s Mysteries Help Save the World’s Coral Reefs?

You’ve seen it in the faces of infants when they recognize their mother’s smiling face above. You’ve seen it on the face of an old friend across the room when she suddenly recognizes you…after all those years. And Doug Shulz, producer at Partisan Pictures, saw it clearly on my face, when he tapped me on the shoulder and pointed toward an old friend I hadn’t seen in nearly 35 years.

When we humans recognize a friend, our faces convey it with a distinctive widening of the eyes. Combine that with the surprise of seeing someone we aren’t expecting to see, our eyes grow even wider, often accompanied by a cartoon-like jaw drop. Judging from Doug’s expression while observing my face, I can only imagine how wide my eyes were. Since we were 20 feet beneath Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico waters, it must have been difficult for him to discern between an expression of surprise and delight versus a textbook example of wide-eyed diver panic. My eyes were transfixed on my old friend with a funny name whom I hadn’t laid eyes on since I was a teenager. Larger than life, vibrant, and embracing the sun, my friend was very much alive and healthy, clearly enjoying the good life in Cuba.

Underwater cinematographer, Shane Moore films an enormous stand of healthy Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) near Cayo Levisa, Cuba

At times I had doubted I would ever see Acropora palmata again — known to most as Elkhorn coral — but here it stood as dramatically and triumphantly as it had a generation ago, before most of its kind vanished from the Caribbean. Acropora has been described as the “poster child” for decline in the Caribbean, decimated by bleaching, white band disease, hurricanes, and other factors. Recent scientific papers, pointing to the nearly 95 percent loss of this genus in areas like the Florida Keys, have pointed out that such a grave loss has seriously altered “the fundamental dynamics of shallow-water community structure.” So emblematic is Elkhorn coral to the healthy coral reef, and so heart-wrenching has been its loss, that, while Vice President of Ocean Conservancy, I lobbied hard — and won — to have its image included in the organization’s redesigned logo. You can’t miss it, at the bottom, to the left of the humpback whale.

Healthy brain corals were abundant near Cayo Levisa, Cuba

I knew from data and photos taken by colleagues that such corals flourished in Cuba. And on previous expeditions, I had even glimpsed small patches of Acropora, clinging to reef crests, standing tall before the breaking turquoise waves. But in my wide-eyed encounter, I was breathless. I beheld not just a small patch of healthy coral. I saw stand after stand — a forest of glorious, healthy mustard-brown Acropora, as far as my eyes could see in the fading afternoon sun in the blue-green beneath the waves. Doug, along with renowned cinematographer Shane Moore, had found it before me and were already capturing frame after frame of video for the PBS series, “Nature,” an episode on Cuba scheduled to air sometime in 2010. But all I could do was sit and stare…and occasionally breathe.

Denuded mangroves evidence the power of 2008's Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which passed through here within a week of one another

Producer Doug Shulz of Partisan Pictures (L) and Underwater Cinematographer Shane Moore (R) on location filming for the PBS series, "Nature"

What made this sight even more incredible is what we had just seen above the surface. Nearly a year ago to the day, not one but two major hurricanes — Gustav and Ike — converged on this area within a week of one another, causing tremendous damage. The storms tore millions of leaves from the islands’ protective mangroves, leaving a tangled fringe of rotting, brown branches along the coastline. What were formerly aids to navigation are now, as Shane pointed out, hazards to navigation, bare wooden posts protruding from the channel, stripped by the winds of their painted markers and lighted beacons. And there was damage underwater, too. The storms toppled dozens of corals, especially Acropora, which lay on their sides or broken into small piles of coral rubble. Some of them were massive, surely many decades old. But even among such wreckage there was cause for joy. Already the Acropora were growing back, and rapidly so. Many of the dark-brown, algae-covered dead branches were tipped with bright, mustard and white extensions several inches long, healthy, young coral exhibiting a quality that conservation biologists long to see in organisms like corals: Resilience. The ability of species to rebound from untold stress, to endure while others perish, we look for areas in the world where corals are resilient. Sadly, despite our efforts, the situation for corals will likely get worse before it gets better. Finding and protecting resilient areas is akin to emergency room triage — protecting those areas with the best chance of survival that may, in turn, help neighboring and downstream areas to recover when conditions eventually improve.

So why Cuba? Why do corals here flourish while just 90 miles to the north in the Florida Keys, and points east throughout the Caribbean, corals lie dead and dying? There are theories, which I’ve covered in an earlier post, “Can Cuba’s Mysteries Help Save the World’s Coral Reefs?” Decyphering this mystery is central among the goals of our ongoing collaborative research efforts with the University of Havana’s Center for Marine Research (Centro de Investigaciones Marinas), where nearly 20 graduate students are using this research as the basis of their Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations.

A lobster fisherman near Cayo Paraíso (Paradise Key), so-named by Ernest Hemingway

It’s also a top priority identified by a unique tri-national (Cuba, Mexico, USA) effort I’m helping to lead to elevate international collaboration in marine science and conservation to a new level. (See related articles at 1planet1ocean and the New York Times.)

As we rested aboard our boat between dives, a lobster fisherman paddled into view in a tiny pneumatico rowboat buoyed by rubber inner tubes. Gliding upon the warm emerald waters against the backdrop of a small, tranquil key, beneath the dramatic mogotes of Pinar del Río province along the mainland, it seemed a scene conjured up by the pen of Ernest Hemingway. As if reading my mind, our captain and guide, Rolando, pointed toward the key and identified it as Cayo Paraíso, Paradise Key, so-named by Ernest Hemingway himself. It’s not the official name of the tiny island, but the locals and the nautical charts all refer to it as Cayo Paraíso. Rolando reminisces about camping on the island with his father. The hurricanes of the past year have washed away nearly half of the island, and I detect a bit of sadness on Rolando’s face. But at the same time I can’t help but think about the paraíso I had just seen beneath our feet. It might be one of a handful of places in the Caribbean that still looks as it did when Hemingway plied these waters. I imagine him returning, wide-eyed, to greet his old friends.

Coral Reef in Timor (Photo courtesy of Nick Hobgood)

If human CO₂ emissions continue at their current rate, by the end of the 21^st century ocean acidity will drop by another  0.3 – 0.5 units to acidity levels higher (or pH levels lower) than the oceans have experienced in hundreds of thousands of years, and this would happen at an unprecedented rate, roughly 100 times faster than any other such change ever documented over the same period.

There is strong consensus in the scientific community that, like our warming climate, ocean acidification is intensifying due to the massive emissions of CO₂ from human activities. Increased CO₂ upsets the natural balance of ocean chemistry — more CO₂ shifts the balance toward increasing carbonic acid (H₂CO₃).

Ocean acidification is a profoundly serious problem that threatens to impact virtually every aspect of the chemical and biological functioning of the oceans as we know them today. Ocean acidification threatens to undermine the function of the ocean’s major ecosystems, including the majority of the world’s coral reefs, potentially causing an unraveling of ocean food chain, large-scale extinction events, and impacts on the oceans’ commercially important fish stocks.

Because of ocean ecosystems’ complexity, it is difficult to precisely predict the impact of ocean acidification. In addition, the impacts will likely vary by regional differences in chemistry as well as by the resistance and resilience of different marine species. However, it is clear that acidification has the potential to cause widespread, significant and irreversible impacts on the functioning of ocean ecosystems, and if humankind does not make adequate strides in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, such impacts will likely occur by the end of this century.

One of the most significant impacts of acidification will be on calcification, the process by which corals, algaes, mollusks, etc. build their shells , plates and other structures from calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). Laboratory results show that an acidic ocean would make it impossible for these plants and animals to build their CaCO₃ structures – essentially, these structures  would be dissolved faster than the plant or animal could build them. In this way, the world’s coral reefs, already pushed to the brink by elevated ocean temperature, nutrient pollution, overfishing, etc., could disappear altogether, along with a myriad of other species.

There’s a great deal of attention focused (especially the Southern Ocean) on the potential for oceanic food chains to be significantly disrupted by acidification given that many phytoplankton and zooplankton species that form the base of the food chain are calcareous, that is, they form a calcium carbonate shell, which would become impossible in a highly acidic ocean. It doesn’t take too much extrapolation to see the effect this could have up the food chain, including fish, whales, and penguins.

The oceanic food chain isn’t limited to organisms that dwell in the sea. We’ve already seen the devastating impact of El Nino on seabird populations, for example. Birds, seals, bears, etc. could also be impacted, as well as Homo sapiens, a species that still depends heavily on hunting wild fish stocks. Increasing acidity of the oceans will also limit the ocean’s ability to buffer increases in atmospheric CO₂, something already being documented in scientific papers. This means that the planet is becoming less and less able to absorb the CO₂ emitted by fossil fuel consumption, which, in turn could translate into more CO₂ remaining in the atmosphere and an even hotter climate.

According to the Royal Society’s 2005 report (Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Policy document 12/05. June 2005. ISBN 0 85403 617 2 (www.royalsoc.ac.uk), “Ocean acidification is essentially irreversible during our lifetimes. It will take tens of thousands of years for ocean chemistry to return to a condition similar to that occurring at pre-industrial times (about 200 years ago).” There have been a number of mitigation strategies proposed, such as essentially dumping chemicals into the ocean to counteract the effects of increased CO₂. However, the scale at which this would have to be done is enormous. Such methods might only be effective in localized areas and might themselves cause damage to marine organisms.

There is strong consensus in the scientific community that the solution to this problem is the immediate and sustained reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, reductions that may well exceed those being put forward today, underscoring the urgency for the United States to demonstrate stronger leadership on this issue.

Fortunately, this issue is finally becoming better publicized and part of the overall climate change dialogue, and the mainstream media is now reporting on the significance of this issue.

Even in those first minutes face-to-face with a coral reef, the enormity of what I was witnessing was clear to me. I remember thinking, “There’s a whole living world going on down here, and we don’t know anything about it.” While I may have suspected in those moments that I would dedicate my career to something having to do with the oceans, I never would have dreamed that more than three decades later I would be literally immersed in some of the most important work of my life just 90 miles to the south of where I was seated beneath the waves.

Last week, as I departed Ft. Lauderdale and the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium, the world’s largest coral summit held every four years, the news was sobering. One-third of the world’s corals are well on their way to outright extinction, and the rest are threatened with, among other things, the indignant end of simply dissolving away, as increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from fossil fuel emissions enters the oceans, raising their acidity to the point where any ocean creature with a calcium carbonate shell — from corals to clams — succumbs to the acid waters. When my daughter was 15 and floated above that same reef I had experienced, it had become a pale shadow of the miracle of nature I had so delighted in. Nearly half the corals in the Florida Keys have died in my lifetime. Some are bleached bone white, others shackled in diseased bands of black. Many more lie smothered in broad blankets of algal slime which have robbed the reef of its rainbow of colors, leaving a lifeless green-gray skeleton where countless diversity once eeked from every imaginable crack and crevice. As I beheld this tragic image, little did I imagine that important clues to saving this reef and many more like it around the Caribbean and the world, might lie just 90 miles to the south.

I now sort through assorted dive gear, video equipment, and sunscreen preparing for my 37th visit to that magical place 90 miles to the south, to an island larger than all the other Caribbean islands combined, to an island whose coat of arms bears a key — “llave del golfo“, the key to the Gulf of Mexico — a subtropical nexus where the waters of the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean intertwine in a sublime undersea cocktail of diversity, color and mystery. Our fourth joint expedition of Proyecto Costa Noroccidental (Project of the Northwest Coast) — a project of the University of Havana’s Center for Marine Research (Centro de Investigaciones Marinas: CIM) and the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi — will continue our ongoing project to explore the most unknown corner of the Gulf of Mexico: Cuba’s northwest coastal waters.

A green sea turtle hatchling at Cuba's westernmost point, Guanahacabibes

It is often said that those 90 miles of open water south of the Florida Keys — the Straits of Florida — separate Cuba and the USA. Like a hand-drawn blue borderline, the Straits are often invoked as a symbol of the 50-year-old Cold War that has frozen our two countries so tantalizingly close, yet so tragically far apart. But to the sea turtles, sharks, lobster, whales and other sea life, those same 90 miles of blue unite our countries with racing blue currents, unseen underwater pathways, and a web of colorful life that defies the perceptions of so many of the Gulf of Mexico, who know it only as a hot, muddy cauldron that spawns hurricanes and oil platforms. Cuba, Mexico and the U.S. share the Gulf of Mexico and have a responsibility to work together to understand and protect it. Thankfully, despite debilitating restrictions, which are ever-changing in the cool winds of Cold War politics, we have worked for a solid eight years now with our Cuban colleagues, advancing our understanding of the Gulf of Mexico and providing research opportunities for Cuba’s next generation of marine scientists — nearly 20 have based their Masters and Ph.D. research on our joint projects.

Cuba's next generation of marine scientists participate in & learn from the project

Cuba’s northwest coast – the verdant Pinar del Rí­o province, home to Cuba’s legendary cigars — is the least-developed coastal region of Cuba. But as Cuba’s tourism trade continues to develop and as Cuba’s fledgling offshore oil development expands into the Gulf, we hope that the insights from our joint research help to guide the hand of such development so that some of Cuba’s most precious assets, its coral reefs, will be spared the all too common fate I’ve seen elsewhere in the Caribbean. And there is much at stake. As we dove during the second expedition, it was as if we had been transported decades backward in time, to the healthy, vibrant, towering reefs I remember from my mid-teens. The reefs I have seen in the Archepélago de Los Colorados, the barrier reef that runs along Cuba’s northwest coast, are the healthiest I have seen in my life. For that reason, and because of its unique history and geography, Cuba may hold important clues for coral reefs elsewhere in the Caribbean and perhaps around the world.

Good friend and colleague, Dr. Gaspar González-Sansón, titular professor at University of Havana, CIM, and co-principal investigator of Proyecto Costa Noroccidental, recently pointed to a number of possible reasons for the health of Cuba’s reefs when we spoke when I was recently in Havana:

• Cuba’s tourism industry did not begin until 1993, necessitated by the demise of the Soviet Union and its aid to the island. Though tourism has proceeded at a rapid pace, it is highly localized at specific resort areas on the coasts.
• The healthiest reefs also happen to be far from shore, such as Los Colorados to the north and Jardines de la Reina to the south, perhaps beyond the reach of harmful concentrations of coastal pollution.
• Cuba does have a commercial fishing fleet, but fishermen principally use hook and line, so unlike nets and trawls which result in catching just about everything, fishing in Cuba is highly selective. In contrast, more than 80 percent of what’s caught in U.S. Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawls is not shrimp — it’s small finfish and other creatures collectively known as “bycatch” that represent the unforgivable waste of this fishing practice. Cuba is now phasing out all bottom trawling on its continental shelf.
  

  Cuban commercial fishing vessel in the Gulf of Mexico

• In the early days of the revolution, President Fidel Castro declared, “Not one drop of water to the sea,” a call to action to dam rivers and streams in order to divert water for use in agriculture and population centers. Reducing fresh water input upset the delicate balance of fresh and salt water in Cuba’s estuaries, resulting in the disappearance of populations intolerant to the saltier waters, such as the white shrimp. In another way, however, this policy may have inadvertently served to help reefs by reducing the transport of fertilizers and pesticides to the reefs.
• Use of fertilizers and pesticides has dropped dramatically since the withdrawal of the Soviet Union. Given that nutrient pollution is a key factor in the growth of coral-smothering algae, this may also be an important factor.

Sunset on Cuba's Gulf of Mexico

In countless ways, the island of Cuba is unique. And when it comes to coral reefs, Cuba is again, unique. Here an island of thriving corals flourishes amid a world of corals dying and disappearing. In this mysterious corner of the Gulf of Mexico where time seems to have stopped, I find hope. Hope that the rich ecosystems of this beautiful island will endure. And I find hope that Cuba’s coral reefs might share some of their tantalizing secrets, secrets that can offer clues to protecting and restoring coral reefs elsewhere, including a special place I still remember in the Florida Keys, just 90 miles to the north.

The Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies (HRI) at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and the University of Havana’s Center for Marine Research (CIM) [Centro de Investigaciones Marinas] are leading a collaborative effort, Proyecto Costa Noroccidental [Project of the Northwest Coast], a comprehensive multi-year research and conservation program for Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico coast. Dr. David E. Guggenheim, president of 1planet1ocean, is a member of HRI’s Advisory Council and also serves as HRI’s Cuba Programs Manager and is co-principal investigator of the project with Dr. Gaspar González Sansón of CIM.

Proyecto Costa Noroccidental is assessing northwestern Cuba’s marine habitats, identifying and describing the principal human uses and threats, providing recommendations for the conservation of the region’s ecosystems, and establishing a framework for long-term cooperative research and monitoring. The project is designed to provide fundamental data on this understudied region of Cuba while also providing new insights regarding biological connectivity and conservation in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. The project is expected to help secure science-based conservation policies in advance of the inevitable wave of development in the region.

Proyecto Costa Noroccidental is the first comprehensive study of Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico region

Cuba’s northwest coast has not been comprehensively studied, and the results of this project are providing an important advance to the natural sciences in Cuba and conservation of costal ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico. This research is gaining attention and participation from numerous Cuban institutions and is providing the basis for the research theses and dissertations for 16 students at the project’s lead Cuban institution, the University of Havana’s Centro de Investigaciones Marinas (CIM) [Center for Marine Research], the only Cuban institution where marine scientists are trained. Our understanding of the Gulf increasingly points toward a vast web of linkages throughout the ecosystem, linkages that span international borders. Collaborative scientific research is a permitted activity under the long-standing United States’ economic embargo of Cuba.

CIM researcher prepares samples for reference collection during second expedition

Up until now, Cuba’s northwest coast has not experienced the levels of coastal development seen elsewhere on the island, but as the country is now among the world’s fastest growing tourist destinations, there are growing pressures of tourism in the region, accompanied by accelerating impacts from fishing, agriculture, and now, offshore petroleum development.

The project is collecting data on corals and invertebrates, fish populations, and water quality. Ecotoxicological analysis is also being conducted to assess land-based pollution impacts. In 2007, a shark research component will be incorporated, including a planned October 2007 shark tagging expedition. Northwest Cuba has seen a ten-fold reduction in shark landings since the 1960s.

CIM researcher measures green sea turtle nesting at Guanahacabibes, Cuba

The project also includes a comprehensive sea turtle research and conservation component focused at Cuba’s westernmost point, Guanahacabibes. Through strong community involvement and education, it has dramatically reduced turtle poaching.

In 2007, in collaboration with several Mexican institutions, the project will include a genetic analysis of Cuban sea turtle populations in order to gain new insight into population dynamics. Also planned for 2007 is a broadening dialogue with Cuban policymakers to make use of the data obtained from this project.

At the December 2006 MARCuba conference in Havana (Cuba’s triennial marine research conference) a total of 22 presented papers and posters were based on the research outcomes of this project. Publication efforts will continue and intensify over the coming year.