Green medicine was the least controversial topic at this three-day conference. Those who participated in the conference spoke clearly about their principles, problems and the policies they want to see enacted. Trees are good. Green areas are good. Air befouled by carbon monoxide and other chemical contaminants and waters polluted by industrial and human wastes are bad.
People walking or riding bikes, horse carts or animal-powered tractors are good.
The problems have been spelled out too. Those urban planners and plant specialists who do have the proper consciousness often lack the resources, materials or public support they need to carry out more ecologically minded plans. Rivers are polluted through public ignorance, insufficient sewerage processing plants and, apparently, insufficient pressure on the industrial polluters. The old-style housing projects whose design was imported from the Eastern European countries when Cuba was working at breakneck speed, but with few resources, to replace the prerevolutionary slums and shantytowns with something better are not only ugly, but they fail to make efficient use of design, location, air flows, trees and ground cover. It doesn't hurt that they receive encouragement from the top.