Paradise reef in Cuba - "The Gardens of the Queen"

About 50 miles off the coast of Cuba, there is one of the healthiest and most beautiful coral reefs in the world. It is a kind of underwater paradise where many rare and endangered species of fauna and flora have found refuge.

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Anderson Cooper immersed himself and the cameramen of “60 Minutes” into this incredibly colourful world to capture its beauty in the documentary “The Gardens of the Queen”, made for the CBS station. Given the rate of degradation of the marine environment, this type of production may in the near future become the last place to bear witness to underwater beauty.

Submerged to a depth of 30m, in the almost crystalline waters of the Caribbean and surrounded by sharks, fish that sparkle with all the colours of the rainbow and almost 100kg of groupers, Cooper interviews renowned marine biologist David Guggenheim. The divers communicate with each other through properly fitted full-face masks.

“Have you ever seen a grouper this big?” – Cooper asks, “Never! In my lifetime I have never seen such a giant! It’s a species on the verge of extinction ,” replies Guggenheim, who has dived on many of the world’s most beautiful reefs.

Talking after one of his subsequent dives, the biologist confides to Cooper that he was very impressed by what he saw on the reef, which the Cuban government has placed under protection from fishing and commercial exploitation.

“The corals are healthy, as are the fish, of which there is an incredible abundance here. The whole food chain is in great shape, including predators such as sharks,” Guggenheim reports briskly, pointing out that sharks are a very important component of an ecosystem that, as a result of human activity, has declined by 90% in the last 50 years!

Like sharks and groupers, coral reefs are also in danger. The scientist gives as an example the Veracruz Reef in Mexico, 90% of which is dead. He explains that the condition of corals, depends on many factors, including: water pollution, coastal development, overharvesting of fish, or rising water temperatures, which leads to a phenomenon called ‘bleaching’. This causes the corals to turn white and become partially extinct.

In the “Queen’s Gardens”, the fading phenomenon was also observed, but it affected a very small number of corals and after a few months, everything returned to normal. This has given food for thought to scientists who are looking for clues that may contribute to the regeneration of coral reefs.

Source: cbsnews.com