Environmentalist in Cuba
With relations between the UnitedStates and Cuba thawing, the islandnation beckons a growing number ofAmerican tourists and businesses. Butnot everybody is fantasizing about theCaribbean country’s potential as a vacationdestination and profit center.
Take Dan Whittle (Law’89), for instance,senior attorney with the nonprofitEnvironmental Defense Fund (EDF): Hesees increased tourism and business as averitable “tsunami” threatening Cuba’slong-standing commitment to naturalresources protection.
“Cubans are well aware of the opportunitiesand challenges associated withopening up,” said Whittle, who leadsEDF’s Cuba Program. “Most CubansI know see it as a real opportunity togrow the economy. There’s a fierce debateabout where to strike the balance.”
President Obama has pushed hard fornormalizing relations with Cuba and inMarch became the first U.S. president tovisit in nearly a century. Americans are travelingto Cuba in record numbers and U.S.businesses are scouting opportunities there.
All that presents risks to local ecosystems,said Whittle, who has beenhelping safeguard Cuban ecosystems formore than 15 years and has traveled toCuba more than 70 times — 11 in thelast year alone.
“The health of shared marine and terrestrialecosystems depends directly onenvironmental decision-making in bothcountries,” he said.
Whittle’s personal interest in theoutdoors became a commitment to theenvironment while he was at CU, partlythrough a law school seminar aboutnatural resources.
He joined EDF in 1997 and becameinvolved in Cuban affairs in 2000, whilerunning an EDF program to help fishermenon the U.S. East Coast establish sustainable,profitable fisheries. A colleague suggestedexpanding the program to include Cuba,given its ecological connection to the U.S.via ocean currents and its exceptional biologicaldiversity. Cuban officials signed onand EDF’s work there has blossomed since.
One project underway involves protectinga quarter of the island’s insular platform— a nearly 27,000-square-mile coastalregion that is home to thousands of speciesof fish, crustaceans, sponges and mollusks,as well as 1,360 miles of pristine coral reefs.
Whittle’s work involves convening scientistsand policymakers from Cuba andthe U.S. to coordinate the habitat assessmentsnecessary to develop and advocatefor environmental policies.
“Both countries have an interest in theenvironment, and it’s not terribly political,”Whittle said. “I’m cautiously optimistic.”
Whittle grew up in New Hampshireand Kentucky and studied economicsand German at Vanderbilt. An advancednatural resources seminar at ColoradoLaw with professor Charles Wilkinsonhelped steer him toward work as a professionalenvironmentalist.
“We spent the semester looking at managementof two national parks and fivenational forests in the Yellowstone area,and the many conflicts around public landuse,” Whittle said. “The course taught meabout the importance of getting diverseviewpoints around the same table when
making decisions about natural resources.I am still using lessons learned fromthat experience.”
Photoby Noel Lopez Fernandez