Ecological Transition in Cuban Legal History
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by Yuniesky San Martín Garcés
Vice President and Legal Consultant – Naturpaz Inc. (USA)
Since the late 19th century, some environmental protection regulations have been present in Cuban legal history. However, the legislation in force at that time was characterized by utilitarian interests, lacking the perception or existence of a holistic approach or proactive practice regarding environmental legal rights.
The Earth and its ecosystems are part of a whole integrated into the most precious legal right: the human being. Natural balance must be legally harmonized with human life because ecology is the sustenance of life. The two rights are intrinsically related; therefore, both must be prioritized in the legal hierarchy due to their extreme sociological importance. The methodological deficit of ignoring the hierarchical importance of the environment or ecology in substantive and procedural law persisted until the first half of the 20th century.
The rise to power of Fidel Castro Ruz's regime in 1959 drastically changed the environmental situation in Cuba. The drive to develop a set of ecological laws and regulations was at odds with the totalitarian political voluntarism of the tyrant Castro. The “maximum leader” exercised absolute power without any judicial or legislative limitations or oversight of his executive decisions. This absolute control allowed him to authorize a series of catastrophic administrative orders, causing considerable damage to multiple Cuban ecosystems—a reality chronicled in fourteen actions in the remarkable work “The Philosophy of Environmentalism” by Juan Alberto De La Nuez Ramírez, President of the Naturpaz Community Councils in central Cuba.
At the beginning of the “institutionalization” period, environmental preservation experienced an attempt to “adjectivize” ecological crimes in the text of the 1976 Constitution, which spuriously replaced the 1940 Constitution. Article 27 of the 1976 Constitution protected environmental law in line with environmentalist thinking, which, even at that time, considered the protection of nature for the well-being of citizens as its fundamental priority.
The 1976 Constitution would later be amended. In 1992, the obligation of the State and citizens to protect nature for the enjoyment of a healthy environment was added. Sadly, the duty to protect the environment and natural resources to guarantee present and future generations a sustainable and safe environment was never put into practice. The application of the seemingly ecological legal intention to sell tickets to the Havana regime's "green" show was never expressed in an opinion opposing the Cuban military. Where judicial independence does not exist, the judicial opinion is a puppet. The best demonstration of the above statement is the response of the People's Supreme Court of the Republic of Cuba to the lawsuit filed by Naturpaz in 1999 against the construction of an international airport in Cayo Coco. The response of Cuba's highest court was not only ridiculous, unlawful, and laughable, but also unfortunate for the environment in Cuba. The Supreme Court's response to Naturpaz's lawsuit against President Castro and other public officials for violating the Constitution, the Environmental Law, the Forestry Law, and the Criminal Code Law. The Cuban Supreme Court's response confirmed that institutionalization was a "façade" and that the passage of time and the apparent adjectives of Cuban Environmental Law, with supplementary laws such as the Environmental Law and the Forestry Law did not affect or limit Castro's absolute political power. Environmental-legal balance would have to wait for a real ecological transition, currently led by Naturpaz Inc.
The constant attacks on the environment caused by the lack of political will, irresponsibility, and poor administrative management of the Communist Party continue to this day, with the government prioritizing exploitative and ecocidal tourism in the hands of the militaristic conglomerate GAESA.
The current alarming situation in which the archipelago finds itself is the result of dissimilar factors and administrative actions unsustainable with the ecological transition. The legal system has allowed aggressive practices against our ecosystems, especially during these last forty years of economic experiments characterized by irrationality and stubbornness—even going beyond the Environmental Law and compliance with the constitutional mandate of environmental protection.
An example of this is how more than half of the arable land is eroded and severely degraded, with acidity and salinization of Cuban soils. Unfortunately, the crisis has reached a magnitude classified as an environmental catastrophe due to the extensive pollution of rivers, their reservoirs, streams, and coastal areas.
The Almendares River—historical site of the "Almendares River Declaration of Naturpaz" in 1995—continues to be indiscriminately dumped with countless solid waste and waste from factories and urban biological waste that enter its riverbed. Lenin Park, where Naturpaz was born on February 9, 1986, is in ruins like the rest of the Cuban archipelago. Ruins caused by the mismanagement of the army, the PCC, the judicial system, and the Castro regime.
Throughout these more than 65 years of environmental disaster, Isbel Díaz Torres, biologist and environmental activist, cites five events that marked Cuba's environmental history and offers a detailed analysis of these key events that have shaped the country's environmental history. The biologist cites everything from the hydraulic policies of the 1960s that transformed river courses to the devastating explosion at the Matanzas Supertanker Base in 2022.
1- Hydraulic Will.
In the 1970s, more than 2,100 dams and micro-dams were built throughout the country without any environmental impact studies. This affected soil fertility and severely contaminated coastal aquifers by channeling the path of rivers, preventing them from flowing into the sea.
2- The invading Che Guevara Brigade.
The largest destruction of natural forests in the history of the Cuban archipelago began in a place called La Concepción, near Bayamo. The operations were organized under a military structure and directed by people with no experience in forest management and exploitation.
3- The Havana Cordón.
This was an attempt to turn the country's capital into an economically important area for the production of caturra coffee. The project's objective was to surround Havana with fast-growing, high-yield coffee plantations. The vast majority of the land proved unsuitable for coffee production, so the coffee plantations were gradually eliminated. In short, the experiment was a failure of resources and time.
4- The Caibarién Pedraplén.
On December 15, 1989, construction began on the Caibarién-Cayó Santa María Pedraplén; an idea of Dictator Fidel Castro to create a tourist destination in the northwest area of Villa Clara. This led to the fragmentation of the habitat of countless species and altered ocean currents, causing saline contamination of the groundwater near these causeways. The habitat of blue crabs and other crustaceans, such as fiddler crabs, moor crabs, and a variety of crabs and spider crabs that were abundant in the area, was also affected.
5- The fire at the Matanzas Supertankers site
On August 5, 2022, a devastating explosion shook the Matanzas Supertankers base, where large quantities of oil were stored. This incident left a tragic death toll of 17 people and 132 injured. The dictatorship had no choice but to admit the event as the largest industrial disaster in the country's history. There were reports of black rain and ash falls that contaminated crops and water sources for animals. Naturpaz continues and will continue to work with its proactive program to achieve an ecological transition, relying on legal precedents that safeguard the protection of a healthy and truly sustainable environment and demanding financial and moral accountability from those responsible for these disasters.
We are convinced that complex work awaits us to energize, reflect on, and promote an ecological-legal transition based on sustainability, environmental conservation, and the introduction of ecological engineering within a framework of proactive legality.
Naturpaz's inherent objective is to demand and advocate for a peaceful transition toward the democratization of Cuba. The adoption of a legal project that qualifies environmental rights in the context of civil society throughout the archipelago, allowing all pro-democracy organizations inside and outside Cuba to be part of that future for all and for the good of all. This is an eternal goal. That is why our message to future generations is "Naturpaz Forever."
References
De La Nuez Ramírez, J. A. (2024, July 11) The Philosophy of Environmentalism, accessed June 2025 at http://www.naturpaz.com in Naturpaz.com
Morejon Almagro, L. (1999, July 12) Where Are We Going?, accessed June 2025 at http://www.cubanet.com in Cuba
Historical Document, (1999, April 20) Naturpaz Legal Demand, accessed June 2025 at http://www.naturpaz.com in the Environmental Section, Naturpaz.com
Diaz, I. (2025, June 1) Five events that marked Cuba's environmental history, accessed June 2025 at http://periodismodebarrio.org Periodismo de Barrio.org
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