Ninety miles off the coast of Florida, an enclosed society resides on America’s oldest overseas base –Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also known as “Gitmo.”
Surrounded by barbed wire, the forced seclusion has created a fragile balance of life, in limbo between two adversarial nations. The U.S. Navy is at the forefront of preserving and protecting this remote enclave of Cuba’s environment.
“ The still-standing virgin forest has become the last safe place for several plant and animal species on the island,” said Paul Schoenfield, head biologist for Gitmo. “This includes numerous marine animals and sea life.”
This wasn’t the case 30 years ago, when the forests of Cuba were home to more than 80 rare and endangered plant and animal species. But Cuban citizens, hard pressed by economic crisis, cleared much of the island’s forest for fuel, and hunted to near extinction several indigenous species to supplement their food supply, thus rendering the Navy base a de facto nature preserve.
“Gitmo holds the richest vegetation of its kind in all the West Indies,” according to Dr. Alberto Arecas, chief botanist of the National Museum for Natural History in Havana, Cuba. “Because the U.S. Navy has never used the entire 35 square miles of land in the bay area, the base has preserved sections of pristine vegetation.”
Like any nature preserve, effective game and wildlife resource enforcement is a must. Therefore, Naval Security Forces (NSF) Cuba personnel serve as base game wardens.
“My job out here is to enforce laws that are directly linked to vegetation and wildlife,” said a Base Game Warden, Aviation Ordnanceman 2nd Class Noland Edwards.
On land and in the water, ecological policy plays a key role in maintaining the fragile reserve of the base. The main way the Navy conserves Gitmo’s environment is by leaving the land alone, allowing vegetation and wildlife an opportunity to flourish.
“There are certain areas of the base that are strictly off limits to people. [This]allows the local plants and animals to thrive,” said Edwards. “The animals here are unusually large and abundant because of the protected woodlands, as well as the policies that we have in place to protect the species on the base,” said Edwards.
“For example, the rock iguana, protected here from predation … grows to a length of five feet on the coast of the bay,” said Edwards, “which is much larger than the average Cuban iguana that is constantly hunted outside of the base.”
The most visible animal on the base is the hutia, known as the “banana rat” by residents here. Outside the confines of the base, they have been ruthlessly hunted. At least seven of the 10 known species in Cuba are in danger of extinction, but not on Gitmo. In fact, controlling the overpopulation of this rodent is the main question for this species. “We have population management in place [so]traps are set in areas of concern to capture the animals,” said Edwards.
The management practices of the Navy are not only focused on the wildlife, but also on all natural resources present, including the marine ecosystem within the base perimeter.
