Environment Minister Max Puig said that his department is drafting a new environmental ruling to avoid the implementation of the “serious technical errors” contained within the Sectorial Law for Protected Areas (No. 2002-04 of 30 July 2004). He called the law a “juridical absurdity” that is contrary to national interest, which he says should be put first. “We believe that as it was drafted the law opens the door to many exactions and from that point of view the law is a crime and the Ministry of Environment cannot be on the side of crime,” he stated. He explained that the law contradicts itself and thus cannot be enforced. He explained that there are entire towns that would have to be wiped out if the law were to be applied, especially those in the Punta Cana to Cabo Engano area. He told the press, as reported in Hoy, that there are people that think they can build hotels without controls in fragile areas. He defended the Park of the East where he said the most important coral reefs are located, a major source of fishing.
“If we degrade the natural resources that are the main attraction of our tourism industry, in that same manner we are leading to the destruction of our tourism industry,” he told Hoy newspaper.
Puig said he would not be accomplice to an “ecocide.”
He said that the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice that recently validated the law made a mistake in their opinion that the law will reduce poverty. He said that on the contrary, to expose protected areas to destruction is what will increase poverty and impede the country from achieving sustainable development. “That law is against tourism because it affects its sustainable development, and tourism needs to be sustainable or it will not be,” said Puig when attending the opening of a visitor’s center in Valle Nuevo, Constanza.