Cuba is one of the Caribbean’s most biodiverse island nations, with exceptionally high levels of endemism and ecosystems ranging from forests and wetlands to mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds. Around half of its plant species and more than 40% of its animal species are endemic. These ecosystems form an important part of the country’s natural capital, supporting livelihoods, food and water security, coastal protection and resilience to climate change.
Protecting this natural wealth requires sustained and diversified financing. Cuba faces the challenge of mobilizing sufficient resources for biodiversity while improving the effectiveness of existing expenditure and integrating the value of nature into economic and financial decision-making. This is particularly important for forests, coastal and marine ecosystems and sustainable agriculture, where biodiversity conservation is closely linked to climate resilience and local development.
UNDP BIOFIN has worked in Cuba since 2016, supporting the country to assess biodiversity expenditure and financing needs and develop financial solutions for national biodiversity priorities. The programme has helped strengthen environmental accounting and institutional coordination and supported the integration of biodiversity finance into national economic and development planning.
Building on this foundation, a new phase of UNDP BIOFIN launched in 2024 is focused on implementing and scaling biodiversity finance solutions. These include Payments for Ecosystem Services for sustainable forest management, strengthening the National Environment Fund, green banking, sustainable finance for protected areas and financial incentives for agrobiodiversity. Together, these solutions aim to diversify funding sources, mobilize additional resources and better align Cuba’s financial system with biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.
1. Entrance fee for protected areas:
BIOFIN, with ECOVALOR project, will try to continue with this financial solution in dialogue with MINTUR. A preliminary calculation of the entrance fee was prepared, which must be recalculated from the process of monetary and exchange unification developed since January 2021. The restrictions on tourism by the Covid-19 have stopped the advance in this solution.
2. PES carbon removal by sustainable forest management
PES carbon removal by sustainable forest management: promotes the conservation of biodiversity based on sustainable forest management practices. The pilot implementation is carried out in the Agroforestry Company of the Matanzas province, as a result of its approval by the Ministry of Agriculture, which directs forestry activity in Cuba.
The certification mechanism is used for the removal of atmospheric CO2 in forests, which requires monitoring the implementation and definition of the procedures required for its operation, establishing differentiated payment rates for the carbon removed in productive and conservation areas, promoting the value of these last. These revenues will support sustainable forest management.
3. Improvement of the National Environment Fund
The general objective of the FNMA Improvement proposal is to redesign the current Fund, modifying its structure, legislation, organization and operation, as well as diversifying its sources and destinations, contemplating the capitalization, profitability and mobilization of resources from other sources, and developing actions that favor better dynamics.
Transformations will be proposed in the organization and composition of the Multisectoral Board that directs the Fund, as well as in its regulations. Also in the dissemination, training, and incorporation of new decision-makers, actors and beneficiaries.
4. Green banking
Development of capacities for the implementation of Green Banking by promoting the financial institutions of the National Banking System, which integrate financial support for the protection, conservation and sustainable use of natural resources, biodiversity and the environment in general; Its mission being to promote a positive environmental impact in financial operations, with emphasis on the search for sustainable sources of financing and their application in projects that demonstrate their effective influence on the goals for adequate environmental management. Together with the above, a project of the SDG Fund with participation and co-financing from BIOFIN is accompanied by the creation of an enabling framework for environmental and climate finance in the country with the establishment of a roadmap and an action plan.
5. Package of financial mechanisms for agrobiodiversity in the non-state sector
It proposes to implement in the non-state sector, an articulated package of mechanisms that mobilize financial resources for the expansion of positive experiences of agrobiodiversity. Ex: ecological labeling, bonus for the rational use of natural resources, tax reduction, agro-tourism, preferential prices for bioproducts and their exportation, among others. Once the pilot is finished, it plans to scale the mechanisms in agro-productive areas with conditions to replicate the experience. This solution is inserted within the priorities for local development, which is promoting the country.
