Environmental protection is a priority of the Cuban state and government. That is the motivation for the creation of the Environmental Agency (AMA), which implements and oversees the execution of the National Environmental Strategy and the National Environmental and Development Program.

In its units throughout the country and the territorial offices of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, this agency establishes the forms and methods of environmental management, in coordination with various social sectors. It also coordinates national implementation of the international agreements signed by Cuba in this sphere.

It implements the Environment Act, the National Environmental Strategy and the National Environmental and Development Program.

Its carries out state environmental inspections, and oversees and demands environmental protection and the rational use of natural resources. Moreover, it creates and implements programs for developmental and other research, as well as other services.

Among its basic priorities are research activities related to the search for solutions to prevent the destruction of ecosystems, soil degradation, deforestation, the loss of fishing resources and biodiversity in general; water and air pollution; and the overexploitation of natural resources. The most important research currently being carried out is aimed at stopping pollution of Havana Bay and halting the dangerous salinization process taking place in Guantánamo province.

The Environmental Agency is affiliated with the National Meteorological Service, and it directs and controls the System of Protected Areas and the environmental education strategy throughout the country.

Some noted Cuban institutions belong to this agency, such as the Institutes of Oceanography, Ecology and Systems, Meteorology, Geophysics and Astronomy, and Tropical Geography. Other centers affiliated with it are the Center for Environmental Information, Management and Education; the Center for Environmental Inspection and Control; and the Center for Protected Areas, as well as the National Aquarium, the Museum of Natural History and the National Zoo.

In recent years, Cuba has signed a large number of international environmental treaties and agreements, among them the convention prohibiting the development, production and storage of bacteriological weapons; the UN framework agreement on climate changes; and the Vienna Convention on the protection of the ozone layer. It has also signed the convention banning the development, production, storage and use of chemical weapons and governing their destruction.

(Taken from: Cubasí)