Saving sharks is one issue where U.S. and Cuba agree

HAVANA, June 15th At the fishing port once used by Ernest Hemingway, fisherman Luis Abad and five other men lugged a 12-foot tiger shark onto the dock so that Havana University scientists could measure and weigh the nocturnal hunter.

That Abad, 57, cut up into hundreds of pungent, inch-sized chunks and tossed into a bucket. He let the hot Cuban sun melt the cubes into oil, which he’d give to his asthmatic aunt. She had been pressing him for more of the folk remedy.

“It helps her breathe,” Abad said, lifting his gaze from his work with the knife. “I take it every day. I never get sick.”

Cuba is home to about one-fifth of the world’s 500 shark species. Many sharks and other fish found off the shores of Florida have traveled north from Cuba, following their prey.

Cuba – or at least Cuban fishermen – figure as one of the greatest threats to some of those same species, many of which find themselves in danger because of the animal’s popularity as both a staple food and a source of folk remedies like the liver oil Abad sun-brews in buckets.

That has made protecting sharks odd common ground for the United States and Cuba as the two countries warily circle one another in the search for ways to end more than a half-century of enmity.

In a rocky relationship that’s still finding its way among political crackdowns and blocked business growth, protecting sharks and other marine life is a spot where the two sides have come together. Of the eight agreements reached by the United States and Cuba since relations were restored in December 2014, three involve the environment.

“The environment was the lowest hanging fruit in these bilateral discussions,” says Dan Whittle, the Cuba program director at the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental advocacy group.

In October, Cuba announced an action plan developed with the help of the Environmental Defense Fund aimed at identifying and documenting the largely undocumented shark populations. It calls for eventually imposing fishing restrictions to protect shark nurseries.

A month after the action plan, Cuba and the United States signed their first accord, which called for the protection of fish and coral reefs around the Florida Keys and Cuba’s Guanahacabibes marine preserve, home to more than 200 species of fish, 40 species of corals and 1,000 species of mollusks. The second, signed a week later, was a joint statement on how the two countries would work together to fight climate change and protect against hurricanes and oil spills.

The highest predator in many marine food chains, sharks have been vanquished by overfishing across the world. Their numbers are sharply dwindling because of the high demand for shark fins. In the Gulf of Mexico, some populations have dropped by more than 90 percent.

Cuba has already banned harvesting sharks for their fins, but the restrictions contemplated in the new shark action plan, which includes limits on the number of sharks that can be caught, are likely to affect Cojimar fisherman like Abad and Geori Lopez Ybarra, for whom shark fishing is a way of life.

Their boats typically leave the Cojimar fishing pier after 8 p.m. They fish overnight using baited hooks attached to floating lights. When the bright lights – typically blue or white for sharks – disappear into the water, they know they’ve caught something.

“It’s like Las Vegas,” Lopez said. “Sometimes you win. And many times you lose.”

The absence of regulations and management has put the predators at risk. U.S. and Cuban biologists cite reports that millions of sharks are caught every year with hundreds of tons then thrown back into the sea after the fins have been cut off with no records kept.

Both Lopez and Abad take great pride in using almost every part of the shark. The meat – sold fresh or salted – is eaten. The fins are exported to Asia. The liver can be turned to oil.

They understand that restrictions are needed to protect the sharks and fish they depend on, but there is also a sense of uncertainty across the fishing community on how new restrictions will affect livelihoods.

“This is what we do for a living,” said Lopez. “It’s not that we cut the tail and throw it away. We eat sharks. We know we must protect them, but this is what we do for a living.”

Like Cuba’s lush mangrove forests and pristine corral reefs, its shark habitat remains healthier because of its climate and undeveloped coastline.

The U.S. trade embargo, which the Cuban government has blamed for many of its economic challenges, has helped insulate Cuba’s ecosystem from the type of tourism and development that has challenged other nations

Cuba also was an early proponent of environmental protection, with Fidel Castro as long ago as the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro calling on world leaders to “fight the ecological destruction threatening the planet.” Cuba imposed a number of restrictions to protect marine habitats.

But those measures haven’t stopped poor Cubans from overfishing.

Later this month, the ambassador for oceans and fisheries at the U.S. State Department, Dave Balton, is expected to lead a group of U.S. scientists to Havana to meet with their Cuban counterparts and discuss how best to implement efforts to address climate change and protect against natural disasters and oil spills.

In July, a group of Cuban officials and scientists is expected to come to South Florida to meet with U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration scientists to study reefs around the Florida Keys and the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the northwest Gulf of Mexico.

“We want to be able to continue opening more doors and learn more about our colleagues,” said Billy Causey, NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries regional director, who helped broker the first accord. “Havana is 40 miles closer to my office than I am to the Miami airport. It’s amazing that we know so little about one another and we’re so close together.”

Environmentalists such as Whittle are pressing the administration to keep the momentum going so that any inroads survive into the next presidential administration.

The pent up demand from both sides is so high that Balton says it seems that little can stop the progress.

“This is one of the easier things,” Balton said. “If I had any concern at all about this it is that some of the other harder things like human rights and some of the economic issues are not fully sorted out.”

The role the environment plays in the new relations is not free from controversy either.

While most scientists in both countries appear to support improved relations with the United States, some also fear the potential impact of an influx of American tourists on the island. The U.S. government just approved 155 weekly flights to nine Cuban cities, and while tourism per se is not allowed under U.S. law, the expected influx of Americans is likely to be great.

“Tourism can have a large environmental impact,” said Cary Cruz, director for local sustainable development programs at the Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation of Man and Nature in Havana. “For this reason, we feel we need tourism that is responsible, different in my opinion.”

Sharks are expected to be part of the attraction for new visitors drawn to the island’s spectacular diving and snorkeling sites.

Tour buses already take tourists to Cojimar, the setting for Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” the 1952 novella about a Cuban fisherman who catches a giant fish and then has to battle sharks for it.

For tourists, fishermen pulling out their daily catch of sharks, rays and other fish offer another glimpse at daily Cuban life.

For Lopez, there is much symbolism involved. If there are no sharks or fish to catch, there will be no old fishermen.

“It’s very important that U.S. and Cuba scientists collaborate because we’re fishing in the same ocean, Lopez said. “If we kill all that we can kill here, there will be nothing left.”