Cuba: The Accidental Eden

(The Telegraph) In Cuba: The Accidental Eden, PBS’s Nature series presents a glorious look at how Cuba’s wetlands, coral reefs, and crocodile population have thrived in the absence of human interference. Bringing to mind the History Channel’s extraordinary 2008 documentary, Life After People, The Accidental Eden offers a glimpse of what these ecosystems still have the potential to be. But fears are also raised by interviewed biologists and environmentalists that with an inevitable onslaught of American tourists this wildlife paradise may be short-lived.

Scientists attribute Cuba’s stellar natural ecosystem to two factors: legitimate government policy and an accident of history. Only 90 miles from the coast of south Florida, the clock appears to have stopped ticking in Cuba almost 50 years ago when the United States imposed a near-total embargo against its island neighbor in 1962. Since that time Cuba, which occupies nearly half of the Caribbean’s land mass, has maintained its thousands of miles of unspoiled coastline, pristine forests, and over a million acres of wetlands.(read full text)