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The Refuge of the Pink Flamingo |
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By Dalia Acosta*
Thousands
of flamingos will reach Cuba's Máximo-Cagüey wetlands in April for
their nesting season. Workers at this nature preserve have everything
ready to welcome the birds.
CAMAGÜEY, Cuba - Nine kilometers and a nearly
impassable road separate the small and isolated Cuban community
of Mola from the sign announcing the way to the most important pink
flamingo refuge in the Caribbean region.
''From here you have to walk hours through that marsh, deep in mud,
to get near the nesting site,'' Francisco Alvarez, a conservationist
at the wildlife refuge at the mouth of the Máximo River, told Tierramérica.
More than 150,000 pink flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber ruber), also
known as Caribbean flamingos, gather in this wetland, in northern
Camagüey province, 500 km southeast of Havana. They arrive from
other points on this and other islands of the Caribbean, and from
Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.
Their beautiful plumage ranges in color from salmon pink to flaming
red, the result of the carotenoid pigments in their diet of invertebrates
and algae. These flamingos can reach a height of 1.2 meters.
''They arrive in mid-April to build the nests. At the end of May
the chicks hatch, and three days later the parents return to their
homes of origin, leaving their offspring in the care of a group
of 'nanny' flamingos,'' explains Alvarez.
The nature preserve's workers track the process and, in August,
when the season comes to an end, they collect the weakest birds
that have been left behind and set up nests for them in a ''quarantine''
area until they have recovered.
In the end, those birds that would not be able to survive on their
own are sold to Cuban companies or to other countries, under authorization
from the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species
of Flora and Fauna (CITES).
The drought of 2004, says Alvarez, caused several nests to fail,
extended the season, and dried up the spring that provided water
to the flamingos being raised in captivity. The solution was to
carry water from the river, bucket by bucket.
The pink flamingo management plan of the government's National Flora
and Fauna Protection Agency is ''exquisite'' in the opinion of Mayra
González, director of the province's environmental department.
''Twenty years ago we had no idea what was happening in the marsh.
Nobody knew. Now it is the best protected area that we have in terms
of implementing management plans,'' she said.
In 2002, the Máximo-Cagüey marsh was added to the list of internationally
important wetlands of the Ramsar Convention, named for the Iranian
city where the treaty was signed. The Cuban wetland covers 22,000
hectares and serves as a resting area for migratory birds flying
to and from North, Central and South America.
The area includes forests, rivers, swamps, canals, coves, and coastal
lagoons. The characteristics of the soil and the material of the
local vegetation provide the only options for the flamingos to build
their nests.
Seen as an extremely fragile marine-coastal ecosystem, the wetland
holds reproductive sites for migratory and resident birds alike,
of species endemic to the Caribbean -- some are threatened, and
all are ecologically important.
There one can find 'yaguasas' (similar to small ducks), snowy plovers,
pelicans, ducks, cranes and, for the first time, in 2004, a stygian
owl with two chicks. The nature preserve's staff keep track of each
and every nest they find.
Some of the other fauna include relatively large populations of
American crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus) and Antillian manatees (Trichechus
manatus), both endangered species.
The refuge is included in the project for biodiversity protection
in the Sabana-Camagüey ecosystem, under way since 1993 with backing
from the United Nations Development Program and the Global Environment
Facility.
''In addition to preserving the area, doing the work of forestry
and reforestation, attending to the flamingos, ducks and yaguasas,
we have to dedicate time to protection, to prevent hunting and fishing,''
explains Alvarez.
The protected area includes a classroom for environmental education
and space for various activities aimed at raising environmental
awareness in the Mola community, especially targeting people who
have violated the conservation regulations.
In addition to the environmental impacts caused by nearby towns,
the wetland is undergoing a salinization process resulting, in part,
from water projects on the Máximo River, which is already contaminated.
Experts believe the contamination would reach the marsh once the
waste treatment system of an aquiculture company is implemented.
The firm is blamed for much of the river's environmental deterioration
since the early 1990s.
''Here everything was sugarcane and livestock. Now we have this
alternative that helps us a lot,'' says Raquel Véliz, a young woman
who went from ''doing nothing'' to working at the wildlife refuge.
''I'm from here. Born and raised in Mola.''
More than half of the 44 workers at the refuge are her neighbors,
and the 700 residents of the community, without means of transportation
or communication, benefit from the conditions created in the protected
area.
''A bus comes in once a week. So now we can take our sick people
to the doctor and take care of the other needs of the community.
Here everyone does a bit of everything,'' said Véliz.
* Dalia Acosta is an IPS correspondent.
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