This was his first book project, published in 2015 by Friendship Association’s Ediciones Nuevos Mundos in St. Augustine, Florida. It represented both a major challenge, given his limited prior experience with projects of this scale, and an important milestone in his professional career.
The work required several years of expeditions across different regions of Cuba to document species and obtain visual references for the illustrations. The guide was conceived under a distinctive and innovative approach. Using his own watercolor illustrations, Nils depicted each species from multiple angles, incorporating symbolic elements to partially replace lengthy text descriptions and improve the guide’s ergonomic and practical use in the field. The result was not only a visually distinctive publication, but also a highly functional field tool: portable, user-friendly, and easily updatable.
The release of the book received remarkable recognition, leading to invitations for presentations and lectures at institutions and organizations throughout the United States, including Harvard Explorer Club at Harvard University, University of Wisconsin, International Crane Foundation, Boston University, institutions in Minnesota, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy, among others.
