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Cuba to Plant Millions of Royal Palm Trees this Year
CIENFUEGOS, Cuba, Jun 27 (acn)
Some three million royal palm trees will be planted this
year across Cuba with the objective of guaranteeing a
gradual increase in the numbers of the Cuban National Tree.
Milian Rodriguez
Lima, Coordinator of the Palm Tree Department of the
Cuban Botany Society told ACN News Agency that there are
nurseries in all
the territories across the island promoted by the
Agriculture Ministry,
Azcuba Business Group and the National Association of Small
Farmers (ANAP).
He stressed that Cuba is a rich country in the diversity of
highly endemic
palm trees with some 96 kinds; 42 are in danger of
extinction, 9 in a
critical state while 17 are characterized as vulnerable.
The expert added that there are four species of endemic palm
trees
coexisting and all inhabit in the extreme western part of
the island.
One of the actions to advance in the reforestation program
was the
creation of the Palm Tree Department of the Cuban Botany
Society on
September 30th, 2010.
Among the association’s achievements is the creation of
nurseries where
they have reproduced species in danger of extinction.
Rodriguez Lima said that they established cooperation with
several
teaching institutions and research centers in favor of a
scientific
support to the program.
They also drafted a technical project to advise the palm
tree producers
due to the lack of information on its geminating
peculiarities and the
difficulties of its massive propagation.
Cuban specialists developed the first molecular studies of
palm trees last
year in a German Botanic Garden where they work the
Coperniccia piece,
reported then Perlavision web site.
Cuba has a forest rate of 27.7 percent according to a recent
report of the
official daily Granma and although it surpasses what was
agreed on in the
Declaration of Principles of the Earth Summit, this figure
could increase
with a major presence of the national tree.
The royal palm tree is a resource of economic, social and
cultural value
for the country since the existence of the indigenous
community, the
mambises in their liberation struggle against the Spanish
colonists and
the Rebel Army in the eastern Sierra Maestra Mountains to
the current
campesinos in the countryside.
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