State of the hotel gardening in the selected areas of the project of Sustainable Tourism

Abstract

As part of the work of the Project Sustainable Tourism, that is organized by the Agency of Environment of the CITMA with the support of the GEF/PNUD, the state of the gardening of the sector los Tainos, in Varadero and in the Coco and Guillermo keys is evaluated starting from the areas occupied by the gardens, the species, varieties and cultivars used; the native and the exotic species are quantified with special emphasis in the exotic invasives, as well as those potentially invasives and the non invasives, the morphology, the dispersion ways of the invasive species and the handling problems associated to large grass areas and the evacuation of waste of the gardening in the margins of the hotel parcels.The works allowed to conclude that the evaluated total area of gardens is sufficiently high to justify actions fully to increase the environmental sostenibility of the tourism in the costs. The quantity of species native employees in relatively low, while the exotic species in very high (68-80%), but it is more acute the derived threats of the wide use of invasiveexotic species many they are disseminated by the wind and the local fauna; the species woody are among 68-75% of the total what contributes to the capture of CO₂ in contrast with the big areas with grass they contribute much less. Added to all this are the issues associated with poor handling of waste from pruning and garden cleanups.