We’ve been working with our colleagues in Cuba over the past decade under a license from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) which must approve and review all of our expenditures. We go through a similar process on the Cuban side with the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Investment where we must get approval before initiating a project.

Our funds go primarily toward chartering vessels for research, purchase of some equipment (scientific equipment, camping and scuba gear) used in field work, travel for meetings and workshops, and for salaries of our US team (we don’t pay any Cuban salaries). Field work, especially ship time, is a valuable commodity in Cuba because it is too costly for many Cuban institutions, so our joint expeditions are making a difference, not only for science, but for roughly 20 Cuban graduate students who have or are currently basing their graduate theses on the research conducted during these projects.

Bottom line: Our funds are spent on research and conservation activities and nothing else, and our Cuban partners manage these funds responsibly. There are many checks and balances in the system to ensure that funds go to the right place. Working in Cuba is very difficult, but once all the paperwork is done and we get to work, the results are very meaningful.

Canada is preparing to drill the deepest rig that has ever been drilled before off the eastern seaboard. Analogous to the talks of BP prior to its rig failing, the oil companies and lobbyists who are pushing to get this rig going are engaging the same discourse: it’s safe, nothing can fail.

Oil companies will continue to push forth until consumers change their demand, and put pressure on governments to cut their ties with oil corporationgs.

Nonetheless, the change begins with oneself: “My life is my message” (Ghandi).

In the end, mother nature will rule. She always has the upper hand. Only time will tell.

ken