Michael L. Smith
A significant advance in the "integration of biology" took place in January
when SICB and the Cuban Zoological Society (CZS) signed a memorandum of understanding
aimed at promoting scientific collaboration among their members. The two organizations
were represented by their presidents, Drs. Alan Kohn and Giraldo Alayón.
The exchange in the field of natural science is probably the most extensive, and
certainly the most collegial, interchange that is presently occurring between the two
countries. The agreement takes note of a series of successful collaborative projects that
have been carried out by scientists from one or the other of the societies. Since the late
1980s, hundreds of U.S. and Cuban scientists have engaged in joint field studies or
collection-based research. The collaboration has been possible because U.S. embargo
regulations include provisions encouraging scientific research and the free flow of
information. Initially, the collaboration focused on biodiversity, and it included
biological inventories inside Cuba by U.S. naturalists and reciprocal visits by Cuban
systematists to U.S. research collections. In something of a historical irony, U.S.
institutions maintain a large proportion of the specimens and associated ecological
information that is needed by Cuban biologists for research on their countrys rich
biodiversity.
The exchanges of comparative biologists have led to many new precedents for contact
between the U.S. and Cuba. The Treasury Department has issued licenses to carry out joint
oceanographic expeditions, to organize joint workshops, symposia, and other scholarly
meetings, and to ship curatorial supplies to the CZS to help preserve scientific
collections in Cuban museums. Recently, the Treasury Department granted SICB and the
Center for Marine Conservation the first license allowing any member of SICB to join CZS
and to pay its membership fees. See The Scientist (1996, 10(8):1,4) for details
about collaborating institutions.