Cuba Transition Project: Environmental Concerns for a Cuba in Transition

摘要

The ecological costs of the Cuban totalitarian model have yet to be assessed$ however, future generations will inevitably have to pay a high price to repair the damage. Among the Cuban archipelagos most serious environmental problems are, in order of importance, soil degradation, deforestation, water pollution and contamination, deterioration of urban environments, and loss of biodiversity. The only way to avoid increasing Cuba's heavy ecological burden is to establish basic environmental guidelines at the outset of a transition to democracy. These new guidelines should be based upon the principles of sustainable development and be part of a new economic design. During the transition to democracy, there will be three overarching stages or phases for dealing with the country's primary ecological problems: (1) the environmental emergency phase, (2) the institutionalization phase, and (3) the sustainability stage.