[:es]Cuba, Ecological Country, Attractive for Tourists[:]

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Havana, Sep 8.- Cuba is a true festival for those who love nature, due above all to its unparalleled greenery and the well preserved environment, say tourist guides.

 

It is the case that Cuban color is so bright and the nature so vividly exuberant that it looks like a walk through a space of stories and legends instead of a real panorama, to which one can go on holiday.

This criterion is corroborated by many experts, such as Elvis Milian, coordinator of the sustainable tourism program at the National Center for Protected Areas.

This institution belongs to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (Citma) of Cuba, which takes into account both the development of the travel industry and the carrying capacity of the most visited places.

Cuba is an amazing island, a refuge for corsairs and pirates in their times of raids through the Caribbean Sea; a site of diverse stories and landscapes that faced time and the veracity of civilization, said Milian.

Despite having lost its most luxuriant forests, ecosystems are still in perfect condition, especially in the eastern regions, in the center of the country and in the far west.

It is an archipelago of 110,922 square kilometers, including 746 kilometers of coastline (an overall length of 1,250 kilometers from the westernmost Cape of San Antonio to the easternmost Cape of Maisi).

To complete the panorama of geographical statistics it is worth remembering that it has 200 bays, some two thousand cays and islets and 588 kilometers of beaches classified by their importance for tourism.

As is known, more than four million foreign visitors arrive in Cuba every year, in principle with a preponderance of the so-called sun and beach rest, in addition to incentives and congresses, health, culture, nautical and, above all, nature.

The island has a lot to contribute in terms of green, the tours proposed by tour operators are sometimes a day or a week, or longer, according to taste.

A couple of bird watchers, or a group of young students – to mention just a few examples – receive detailed explanations of the environment in which they travel.

If they are academics, the information they are given is more specialized, with details of the protection works and the species around them.

Another of the walks requested is in the most emblematic eastern site of the Sierra Maestra, the Turquino Peak, the highest mountain at 1,974 meters.

This National Park, with 17,450 hectares, stands out for being full of rivers, forests, summits, valleys, and birds; however, this wonderful greenness is found in other parts of Cuba. (Prensa Latina)

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