Cuba's National Reforestation Programme — Plan Turquino-Manati & State Forest Service

Cuba's state reforestation programme dates to the 1959 Ley de Repoblación Forestal, which also created Sierra Maestra and other national parks. It was institutionalised through INDAF and, from 1998, through Law No. 85 (Ley Forestal), which created the Servicio Estatal Forestal (SEF) under the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG) to approve and oversee reforestation projects nationwide. Delivery on the ground runs through provincial and municipal reforestation commissions under the National Commission of the Plan Turquino (established 1987, later Plan Turquino-Manatí), which targets mountain and lowland rural zones respectively, granting mountain cooperatives land usufruct and support to combine coffee, cacao or livestock work with reforestation duties.

Raise national forest cover, control erosion on mountain and post-mining land, and enforce mandatory replanting by extractive companies after clearing.

Reforestation is delivered through provincial and municipal commissions under the Plan Turquino-Manatí, combining land usufruct incentives for mountain cooperatives with a mandatory two-year post-clearing replanting rule for extractive companies. Early plantations relied heavily on non-native Eucalyptus (92% of 1960s plantings) and coastal Casuarina.

National forest cover rose from roughly 14% in 1959 to 27.55% in 2010 and 31.23% in 2020 (World Bank/FAOSTAT, based on government-submitted data); Cuban state media cite 30.6% for 2015. Pinar del Río, the most forested province, reports around 47% cover. Since the 2020-2024 economic crisis, however, hectares planted fell from 12,615.9 ha (2020) to 8,191.7 ha (2024), seedling production dropped by around 40% (24.77 million to 14.75 million), and firebreak maintenance fell from 802.1 km (2023) to 520.7 km (2024). Of 19,954.8 ha 'promoted' for restoration in 2024, only 3,750.3 ha were actually completed.

The programme's headline forest-cover gains should be read with care: figures derive from ONEI/MINAG reporting relayed largely unverified by state media, historical data is internally inconsistent (23.7% in 1989 versus 18.2% in a 1992 COMARNA estimate, reflecting differing forest definitions), and independent estimates put seedling mortality at 47-73% against an official figure of around 40%. Rising fire pressure — 136 wildfires burning over 813 ha in Pinar del Río and other provinces in Q1 2025 alone — points to a risk the programme has not yet reversed.