Two areas of southeastern Cuba hit especially hard by drought received international financing to plant trees — cashews (Anacardium occidentale) and neems (Azadirachta indica) — which will create new jobs and help protect both soil and biodiversity. Planting of cashew, which fetches a good price on international markets, will take place in Granma province, and the neem, used in producing insecticides, in Guantánamo province, Fabio Fajardo, coordinator of small grants projects for the United Nations Development Project (UNDP), told Tierramérica.

The new forests will also help reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which lead to climate change, by serving as ''carbon sinks'', absorbing it in the photosynthesis process.

Both projects, also backed by the Global Environment Facility, are part of a set of sustainable development initiatives for 2005 aimed at environmental problems in small communities.