On Cuba's far-flung Guanahacabibes peninsula, park guard Roberto Varela watches as a green sea turtle lumbers ashore and a ritual as old as the dinosaurs unfolds.
"To see them lay their eggs and to know their nests will be protected, you get the sense you are making a difference," said Varela, who helps oversee turtle research in a national park that spans much of the peninsula.
More than two decades of research on these beaches, Cuban scientists say, corroborates concerns that climate change is heaping new problems, even in environments as undeveloped and remote as Guanahacabibes on the island's far western fringe. "The obvious biological alternative, which is to move to other areas, is no longer an option," Azanza said.The virgin Guanahacabibes peninsula, protected and undeveloped, may provide safe haven for sea turtles as the impacts of climate change grow.
Those elements make the park an ideal "laboratory" for observing climate change impacts and potentially adapting to them, said Osmani Borrego, another researcher and park guard at Guanahacabibes.
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