Actions to Restore Degraded Soil in the Southern Coastline of Guantanamo

Abstract

In the southern coastline of the province of Guantanamo, Cuba, there are communities that have lost several hectares of soil and biodiversity due to land mismanagement. "Los Cerezos" community is located in the municipality of Imias, as part of the “Eliomar Noa” UBPC (Basic Unit for Cooperated Production), which uses 99.2% of their areas for livestock raising. The land is on hills covered with xerophytic bushes; signs of degradation are clearly observed. Restoration is one alternative to revert this situation. It constitutes an effective preservation technique implemented by man to achieve optimum recovery of degraded ecosystems close to their original states. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the results achieved after recovery of local soils, using restoration techniques. Research was done in a fragmented forest, on typical red-brown fersiallitic soil, where the limiting factors were determined (rills, slopes, effective depth, organic matter content, rocks, and erosion), as well as other negative factors that may have an effect on vegetation growth. Common Ligum-vitae (Guaiacum officinalis L.) was used for reforestation due to its adaptability to the ecosystem. The restoration works helped create the conditions for progressive recovery of the areas and mitigate soil degradation, with a decrease in losses of 1 036 t. ha-1 every year, thanks to barrier accumulation.

Keywords

• Guaiacum officinalis
• erosion
• restoration
• preservation
• reforestation