Cuba plans to increase forest area

Cuba is developing a National Forest Programme to increase the nation’s freen cover, the Granma official daily reported.

The director of Cuban ministry of agriculture’s forestry department, Isabel Russo Milhet, said the programme would increase forest land by 2.3 percent to 29.3 percent of the country’s total area by the end of 2015, reported Xinhua.

Cuba has already achieved some “tangible results” in working to increase forest land and is improving an early fire warning system, Russo said.

According to official figures, before Cuba’s revolution in 1959, only 13.4 percent of national territory was forested land.

IANS