Fidel Castro left Cuba a green legacy [View all]

[Mika]

I don't agree with that title of the article.
Castro didn't do it... the Cuban people did it, and continue on.

Fidel Castro left Cuba a green legacy

The shortage of fuel also led to a switch to renewable energy sources. There are now nearly 10,000 operating windmills and a growth in solar energy. Biomass generators now supply nearly 15 percent of the country's electricity. There are hundreds of small hydroelectric facilities, mostly in isolated mountainous regions. Virtually all of the country's sugar mills are now powered by waste from the cane. Solar ovens and other appropriate technologies are now commonplace in rural areas.

Significantly, even when cheap oil from Venezuela became available and access to chemical agents improved, these green innovations remained in place.

While many countries have been destroying their rain forests at an alarming rate, Cuba has made a conscious effort to reverse that trend through large‑scale reforestation programs, which include the planting of a rich variety of native species. Forested areas have more than doubled since the 1959 revolution.

One of the byproducts of the reforestation efforts is that Cuba is now a leading biotechnology center for medicines derived from tropical plants. There has been a dramatic increase in the use of herbal medicines and a return to some proven folk remedies.
As Cubans have grown less reliant on centralized sources for energy and agricultural inputs and more reliant on local sources, political decision-making has become more decentralized. Most state farms have become cooperatives run by the farmers themselves, and an increasing degree of political control now rests with democratically elected local administrations.

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/eco-catholic/fidel-castro-left-cuba-green-legacy

People line a road as they await the caravan carrying former Cuban President Fidel Castro's ashes in El Maja, Cuba, Dec. 1. (CNS/Reuters/Carlos Barria)