CubaPLUS Magazine

Research, conservation and environmental education are today three fundamental lines of action of the Cuban Cubabat project, for the conservation of bats and their habitats, a specialized source said. Yoel Monzón, director of that program in the western province of Matanzas, noted that recent studies show a worldwide decrease in bats populations. The environmental education component, he said, is fundamental in the strategy because various activities are carried out in schools that include not only the youngest, but also the elderly. "In this sense Cubabat develops a strategy for the protection of these species, whose objective is to combine all possible efforts to protect these mammals," Monzón told the radio station Radio-26. An example of this, he added, is the recent signing of a labor agreement between the University of Matanzas, located in this city 100 kilometers east of Havana, and the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Man. This strategy also strengthens links with companies and scientific institutions, and among them stands the National Company for the Protection of Flora and Fauna, which works in the protected areas of this entity, said the expert. Monzón said that Cubabat also collaborates with the Environmental Services Center of Matanzas, which heads a monitoring plan for bats in the northern part of the province for a period of three years. "With the study it was possible to make a cadastre of the main refuges of the chiroptera and to diagnose the list of species richness, and it is planned to extend it to the central matancera area," he said. Monzón told Prensa Latina that, because of ignorance, bats are considered harmful, which have been very vilified when in reality, he said, "they have a great ecological value." "They are great dispersers of seeds therefore they help to regenerate the forests, they are pollinators of fruit varieties like the banana and the mango, besides controlling pests that affect the man and the animals," he emphasized. Monzón said that Cubabat, created in 2010, is sponsored by the Canadian International Animal Experiment Organization (AIE) with the help of the BAT Conservation Trust of England.