Over the holidays, Environment Minister Angel Estevez and the Ministry of Environment statements had firmly rejected press reports in Diario Libre and Listin Diario on the significant presence of Haitian farm laborers in protected areas of Valle Nuevo, Constanza province. Now other official sources are disputing the position of the minister and the ministry. Estevez is a former minister of agriculture who has openly spoken up in favor of farming, even in protected areas. He is also a major farm entrepreneur himself.
Listin Diario says that the Constanza prosecutor Miguel Collado Marte confirmed reports in Listin Diario and Dominican residents in Parque Nacional Juan Bautista Perez Rancier (Valle Nuevo) about the proliferation of Haitians in the area, indicating that in many areas the number of Haitian laborers is well above that of the Dominican population, including in the communities of La Palma, La Culata, La Descubierta, Tireo Abajo and Cruz de Cuaba. He said the judicial authorities would continue to back the Migration Agency in efforts to control undocumented Haitian immigration. He said estimates are there are 30,000 Haitians in the area. He said most of the Haitians run when there is a detention operation and in the 3 January 2019 operation, only 80 were arrested and 47 taken to Santiago for deportation.
Recently, the Superior Administrative Court (TSA) ordered the Ministry of Environment to exercise its role in impeding farming in the Valle Nuevo National Park. The Ministry of Environment under Minister Angel Estevez had denied the farming activities in Valle Nuevo. The environmentalists said they will also seek rulings in the cases of protected areas in Bahoruco and Los Haitises, where Ministry of Environment efforts to control agricultural activities have been practically abandoned by the pro-farming administration at the Ministry of Environment.
Ariel José (Chino) Sing, one of the plaintiffs in the legal case on which the TSA ruled the court against the Ministry, and member of the SOS AmbienteRD movement, announced that by 2019 they will have a rather aggressive agenda regarding compliance with environmental provisions in the National Parks. He warned that in the case of Valle Nuevo they will be vigilant that they comply with the ruling of the TSA that ordered the Ministry of the Environment to evict, within two months, all the agricultural activity within the park.
“If there is no change in attitude, the ministry and the minister will be named in a criminal complaint and we will exhaust all the tools we have and reach the ultimate consequences,” he said.
Sing also understands that the country is currently suffering from an environmental crisis that manifests itself in the large amounts of plastics and solid waste dumped everywhere as well as the threats to protected areas and marine coastal resources, as reported in Diario Libre.
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Hoy
Listin Diario
Diario Libre
Listin Diario
Diario Libre
7 January 2019
