In a magical place, where nature inspires a sense of connection, where silence, breezes, and sunlight are shared like a necessary pause that restores the soul and inspires gratitude for life, just kilometers from Havana, Cuba’s capital, and nestled in the Sierra del Rosario, Cuba’s first Biosphere Reserve, located in Candelaria, we, the people of Artemisa, had a paradise: Las Terrazas.
Just days after walking once again among its people and their emotions, after seeing and feeling firsthand how time takes its toll while we humans stand idly by, or at least that is what the surroundings suggest, and precisely on World Environmental Health Day this September 26, I bring with me a sense of nostalgia for a place that does not deserve to disappear from the map.
Sitting before those palm groves, with terraces stretching in every direction, we have learned about plans for renovation and tourism development, the creation of the Las Terrazas Tourist Complex in 1994, modernity and tradition going hand in hand, economic transformations, and sustainable ecotourism.
We have also enjoyed traditional Cuban cuisine, a modest community, the humility of so many of its people, Hotel La Moka, its restaurants and cafés, the canopy tour, the San Juan River, and Polo Montañez’s house, among its many attractions.
Yet, as we mark this occasion, so important to the sustainability of ecosystems and the health of present and future generations, certain fears trouble us, and we prefer to turn our gaze not toward what this place once was, but toward what it is today.
There, amid a painful silence, overgrown vegetation, invasive species engulfing the lake, and a desolation that words and well-worn phrases cannot capture, we feel a piece of our heritage slipping away.
Las Terrazas, the vision of architect Osmany Cienfuegos Gorriarán, who died in May 2025 and brought together hundreds of farmers from the surrounding hills to give them a better life; the place to which Polo Montañez dedicated Pueblo mío, is caught between the hardships of a harsh U.S. blockade and the failure to turn decisions into action.
If this September day is a time around the world for coming together, reflecting, and taking action; if it was established in 2011, the same year our now 15-year-old province was created, as an initiative of the International Federation on Environmental Health to raise public awareness about environmental health, then my only appeal is for many eyes to turn toward Las Terrazas, its natural resources, and the species that inhabit it.
The Las Terrazas Tourist Complex, with its sustainable rural community situated along the banks of the San Juan River, cannot be allowed to go unnoticed.
If it was declared a National Monument in 2020 for its Cultural Landscape, then restoring its vitality and preserving its values is urgent. My fear is that one day we will speak of all this greenery only in the past tense, rather than in the present and the future.
