Havana - Cuba, under the auspices of the UN Development Program (UNDP), is implementing a strategic flora and fauna conservation and preservation initiative that involves an undertaking to implement a series of concrete actions until the year 2020.

The national study, led by Cuba's Environment Agency's Ecology and Systematic Institute, incorporates 20 goals and five concrete targets, intended to stem biodiversity deterioration and destruction.

Addressing the underlying causes of species loss, coping with primary threats, encouraging the sustainable exploitation of species and the conservation of ecosystems, habitats, species and genes are some of the program's goals.

Launching the strategy, the UND's resident representative in Cuba, Soledad Bauza, stressed the importance of the program, which is the principal strand of a plan for implementing strategic national environmental policy objectives, to cope with the loss of animal and plant species.

Bauza told The Havana Reporter that the goals focus on the main challenges that productive sectors must face to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources and restore the health of ecosystems. The strategy also plays a leading role in the fight against climate.

Given its insular state condition, Cuba is highly vulnerable to rising average sea levels and temperatures and drought conditions.

Having already been presented to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP13) last December in Cancun, Mexico, the report's authors state that the plan complies with UN Convention on Climate Change commitments and aims to establish a series of actions with relevant and realistic goals. Its primary purpose is to identify and establish priorities to halt biodiversity loss though preservation and sustainable use.