The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Park Service (NPS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Cuba's Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA) yesterday. The agreement will facilitate collaboration in marine science, stewardship and management of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). The MOU also aims to promote education and outreach initiatives in both countries.

The effort will focus on Guanahacabibes National Park in Cuba, a biosphere reserve. Also included are the waters of Banco San Antonio that lie off Cuba's northwestern coast, the Flower Garden Banks and Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuaries, the Dry Tortugas national park and Biscayne national park.

The MOU builds upon the work led by a number of U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including Ocean Doctor, Center for International Policy and Environmental Defense Fund, which have worked for more than 15 years to elevate collaboration in marine science and conservation in Cuba during a period with no diplomatic relations and limited government-to-government dialogue. Marine conservation is recognized as one of the most successful areas of collaboration between Cuba and the U.S. during the years without formal diplomatic relations.

I co-led a decade of research expeditions with the University of Havana's Center for Marine Research to create the first ecosystem maps of Cuba's northwestern coast, until then its most unexplored waters. Banco San Antonio, the key Cuban component of today's agreement, was part of those expeditions. In the process, this research helped train the next generation of Cuban marine scientists who today are in positions of leadership in Cuba.

Ocean Doctor works in Cuba, housed by its Cuba Conservancy Program. It has advanced beyond basic scientific research to comprehensive conservation efforts, including:

• Coral Reef Health and Resilience: Ocean Doctor is leading research efforts focused on the health and resilience of Cuba's coral reefs along Cuba's southwestern coast, including the Isle of Youth. This research will help ensure the ongoing protection of these reefs and may help provide insights to protecting coral reefs throughout the Caribbean.

• The Cuba-U.S. Sustainability Partnership (CUSP): In collaboration with the Center for International Policy, CUSP was announced earlier this year. It aims to help Cuba prepare for the immense wave of tourism and foreign investment from the U.S., and also to prevent it from following the path of other regions in the Caribbean that have lost their culture and natural ecosystems, such as Cancún.

• Valuing Cuba's Ecosystems: In collaboration with World Resources Institute, University of Colorado Boulder, the Cuban Center for Coastal Ecosystem Research and other partners, Ocean Doctor is working to apply the tools of environmental economics to Cuba's natural ecosystems to support sound decision making. This effort is focused on a proposal to expand the protection of one of Cuba's most important marine protected areas.

• Cuba Environmental Film Festival: In partnership with the Antonio Nuñez Jimenez Foundation for Humanity and Nature and the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (Dominican Republic), Ocean Doctor is leading efforts to launch Cuba's first environmental film festival in October 2016. The festival will feature renowned filmmakers and environmentalists from around the world as well as Cuba, and through film presentations and round tables, will serve to foster dialogue in Cuban communities about environmental issues.

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500 Years After Columbus, Cuba's Gardens of the Queen Still Pristine

For more than half a century, the Straits of Florida, the thin band of blue water that courses northeastward between the U.S. and Cuba, have been invoked in political discourse to underscore the seemly insurmountable divide between our countries. But dunk your head underwater and you'll see that, in fact, these warm, rich waters inextricably unite us.

Many of the beloved sea turtles that nest on U.S. beaches forage in Cuban waters and vice versa. Sharks, whales and other migratory species regularly cross our respective borders. And Cuban fish grow up to become American fish. Studies show that larvae from grouper and snapper in Cuba hitch a ride in the swiftly moving currents into Florida's waters where they become adults.

The simple fact is that the U.S. and Cuba share a rich marine ecosystem that both nations depend upon. If we are to understand and protect this shared ecosystem, we must work together. Sometimes neighbors don't get along, but when something goes wrong in the neighborhood, they must rise above their differences and find a way to work together.

Unfortunately, something has gone very wrong in our neighborhood. A major report released in 2014 from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reveals an average decline of coral cover in the Caribbean of more than 50 percent since 1970. Corals are dying from a deadly combination of factors. Nutrient pollution, carrying fertilizers from farms and back yards, is fueling the growth of coral-smothering algae. Overfishing is removing parrotfish and other fish that graze on algae, keeping it in check. Thanks to a warming climate, corals are being pushed to the brink of their thermal limits.

The reefs I delighted in as a teenager in the Florida Keys are unrecognizable today. The Caribbean's most iconic coral species, elkhorn coral, is now estimated to be 95 percent extinct from Caribbean waters. The IUCN report, the most comprehensive to date, offers the somber prognosis that without swift and meaningful action, “Caribbean coral reefs and their associated resources will virtually disappear within just a few decades…"

Many in the conservation community abandoned hope for the Caribbean. I had nearly lost hope myself. But several years ago, I started seeing something strange in Cuban waters: Cuban coral reefs were healthy -- strikingly so. In Cuba's Gardens of the Queen National Park, an archipelago 50 miles off Cuba's southern coast, I beheld magnificent stands of healthy elkhorn coral, teeming with colorful grunts, snappers and angelfish, a stand that I later learned was part of a barrier reef system that extends for more than 30 miles. I came face-to-face with Goliath groupers, a critically-endangered species, more than triple my weight. I found myself surrounded by dozens of healthy Caribbean reef sharks, silky sharks, tarpon and myriads of other vibrant fish and corals. And just as Cuba is often described as frozen in time, I felt I was immersed in a living time machine evidencing none of the decay and disease the rest of the Caribbean had suffered over the past half century.

Cuba's reefs are likely so healthy in part because the island has developed so differently from the rest of the Caribbean. But it's also because Cuba has taken meaningful actions to protect its reefs. Cuba's Gardens of the Queen is the country's first marine protected area (MPA) established in 1996. At nearly 1,000 square kilometers, it is the largest fully-protected MPA in the Caribbean. Cuba has made a national commitment to protecting 25 percent of its marine waters, a world-leading figure compared to the worldwide average of 1 percent.

Thanks to Cuba, many of us are now filled with hope for the Caribbean. If we can study this living laboratory to fully understand what is keeping the coral reef ecosystems so healthy and resilient, we can gain insights that can guide coral reef restoration efforts throughout the Caribbean. Working with our Cuban colleagues, we are preparing an international scientific workshop with this very purpose, to learn from one of the last living coral reef laboratories, to understand what a healthy coral reef ecosystem is supposed to look like and how we can best protect it.

As an American, working in Cuba has been exceedingly difficult. Restoring diplomatic relations represents an important step forward and may finally allow government-to-government collaboration in marine science and conservation, something we have been trying to encourage for years. Removing Cuba from the “State Sponsors of Terrorism" list (and ultimately, lifting the trade embargo) will make it possible for us to export equipment critical for our work, currently prohibited or restricted by regulations.

Long before the 1959 revolution and the subsequent severing of diplomatic relations, the U.S. and Cuba shared a fruitful history of scientific collaboration stretching from the mid-19th century. Today, more than ever, our futures, and perhaps that of the Caribbean, depend upon such collaboration, to study, manage and protect our common resources, to learn from one another, and to teach the next generation about the wonders of its natural heritage. We have a beautiful neighborhood to care for. And neither of us can do it alone.

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