DR1, Tuesday 4/18/2006
<TABLE cellSpacing=4 cellPadding=4 width=600 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><HR color=#cccccc noShade SIZE=1></TD></TR><TR><TD><!--- Headline 6 --->Bahia de las Aguilas hotel proposal
The Ministry of Tourism has announced that the French company it is backing for the construction of eco-lodges in the Bahia de las Aguilas area will be presenting its project in Santo Domingo this week. Bahia de las Aguilas is a stretch of virgin beach in the southwest of the country that has not been developed because it is a UNESCO biosphere reserve. The presentation will be at 9am on Thursday, 20 April at Salon AO-03 of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra. The Ministry announced that the press would only be allowed in for the opening words and conclusions of the presentation. The Ministry of Tourism explained that this is due to the limited space in the chosen venue.
The company will discuss the initial presentation made by the French company, Argos to President Leonel Fernandez during his visit to Paris. The original proposal is what motivated President Fernandez to request a more detailed presentation in Santo Domingo.
The Ministry of Environment opposes the construction of hotels in the protected area, citing four studies, including one commissioned by the Ministry of Tourism for the World Tourism Organization, that stress the environmental fragility of the area. He said, nevertheless, that if his department is presented with a project, it would evaluate it. The French investors have yet to fulfill this legal requirement for construction within a National Park. Sources within the Ministry of Environment said that Environment Minister Max Puig would not be attending the presentation. The Ministry of Environment supports the construction of the hotels in Pedernales province, but in the adjacent 17 kms of beach lands outside of the reserve.
As reported in Listin Diario, Environment Minister Max Puig said that his Ministry's brief is to look after these areas. "President Fernandez is very aware of this and if Balaguer created the protected areas, they are not going to be destroyed under the mandate of Dr. Leonel Fernandez," he told the Listin reporter when interviewed at the businessman Juan Carlos Morales' residence in Puerto Plata.
The bestselling book, "Collapse" by Jared Diamond points to how the creation of protected areas and the banning of construction within these has led the Dominican Republic to be a relative environmental success story, and warns against threats for their depredation. The book focuses on how societies destroy themselves and has a chapter on the Dominican Republic, crediting former President Joaquin Balaguer with the wise decision of creating the parks. </TD></TR><TR><TD><HR color=#cccccc noShade SIZE=1></TD></TR><TR><TD><!--- Headline 7 --->Lopez retracts partnership claim
Adolfo Lopez, of the Coalition for the Defense of Protected Areas, sent a letter to Minister of Tourism Felix Jimenez saying he was mistaken in suggesting that French architect Francois Fontes and the Minister were partners. Tourism Minister Felix Jimenez and Luc Litzler of Argos, S.A. denied the accusation. In a copy of the letter published in Clave Digital, Lopez says that the error of perception was due to "ambiguities in the information provided about the plans for development of Bahia de las Aguilas". He said he erred because of the Minister's staunch defense of Fontes' work. "The hiring of Fontes' services by Mr. Jimenez to carry out work for the Ministry, without a tender; the fact that Mr. Jimenez' private businesses are of a real estate nature and located in tourist areas; the fact that Mr. Jimenez has contracted Fontes to carry out the ground use plan for several tourism areas" are some of the reasons he mentions that led him to make the error of linking Jimenez and Fontes as partners. "Definitely, the close relationship between Jimenez and Fontes was the cause for the error, and this has not been clarified by the Minister of Tourism and Fontes," wrote Lopez, who apologized to the Minister. Lopez is a Spanish environmental activist who has carried out work for the Coalition, the Museum of Dominican Man, the National Hotels Association and the Bayahibe Hotel Association, among other organizations.
Lopez maintains his criticism of the project saying that what has been presented is but "a letter of intent, a very elegant one certainly, but with nothing to do with a presentation of a project because there are no architectural renditions, nor details, nor studies of any kind. Please, if there is really a project, I beg that it be sent to us," he says in his letter.
Argos, a French company with registered capital of EUR38,000 presented President Leonel Fernandez with a proposal for the construction of a US$600 million tourism project in Pedernales.
In a letter to Adolfo Lopez, Argos denied that the Ministry of Tourism had entrusted Argos with the preparation of a ground use plan for Bahia de las Aguilas and Pedernales.
Ministry of Tourism spokesperson Anna Jimenez had responded to inquiries about the incongruity between the low registered capital and the size of the investment by explaining that Argos is the company that carried out the studies to determine the density parameters for construction of hotel rooms in the coastal areas, not the investors in the project.
Lopez encourages Argos to look beyond the UNESCO biosphere reserve and consider investments in the adjacent beach areas in Pedernales that are outside the protected site.
In addition to Argos, the Presidency announced following the presentation that a company known as Grupo Mogador is proposing the investment. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>