Preliminary damage to the fire at Alejandro de Humboldt is assessed
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According to experts, it will take about two years to reforest the 1,896 hectares affected -according to satellite images- by the large fire that burned for almost a month, in the Ojito de Agua Conservation Department, in Yateras, belonging to the Alejandro de Humboldt, Natural Heritage of Humanity.
Yamilka Joubert, General Director of the Park's Environmental Services Unit, and researcher Daljanis González Rivera, pointed out that Pinus cubensis or Cuban pine was the most affected plant formation, although species such as red seaweed, incense and palm were also damaged. straw.
Of the animal kingdom, the worst part touched the so-called microfauna of the soil, which includes small species, almost always invertebrates, such as lizards, majaes, and mollusks, although the death of some of the birds typical of that area, such as tocororos, is not ruled out. , pigeons and hawks.
It is planned to reforest 60 percent of the areas with species typical of the rain forest –more humid and less prone to fires-, such as red ocher, grapefruit and oak, with seedlings produced in the Park itself, and in technological nurseries of the Connecting Landscapes project, and others that will be contributed by NGOs such as Oro Verde.
40 percent of the damaged areas, local experts specified, will be rehabilitated through natural regeneration, which is favored by the burning of the thick vegetation that covered the area and interfered with the arrival of the seeds of the pines to the soil and its germination.
Next week, a group of experts will visit the affected sites to determine the main impacts on natural resources and the Humboldt ecosystems, and identify vulnerabilities, with the aim of making recommendations to help reduce them.
Meanwhile, work continues to determine the causes that originated the fire, for which - they acknowledge - there were favorable climatic conditions, including the drastic decrease in rain and moderate and weak winds, in addition to sufficient accumulated combustible material, in the form of dry vegetation cover and litter.