Forestry coverage / Photo: Pixabay
The Ministry of Environment shared findings of the National Forestry Inventory 2018 (INF-RD) at the National Library on Friday, 22 February 2019. The findings were presented by Environment Minister Ángel Estévez, deputy minister for forestry resources Manuel Serrano and Daniel Valerio for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Costa Rican consultant Germán Obando.
The study reveals that seven types of forest ecosystems with an area of 2,103,645.32 hectares cover 43.6% of the country. The study cost US$3 million.
The main objective of the inventory was to quantify and characterize the existing forest in the country, in order to promote the importance of these for human life, highlight the importance of the conservation efforts, and consider their impact on food security, the production of water, as well as the protection of the soil and generation of electrical energy.
According to the study, the forests with the largest area are the broad-leaved humid forest (37.75%) and the dry forest (24.05%), which represent 61.80% of the total forest area. The third area in importance corresponds to the semi-humid broad-leaved forest, with 15.39%. The wetland forest represents only 1.41%. In many areas nationwide, natural old-growth forests have been replaced with a monoculture, such as avocado trees.
The inventory determined that the forests of the Dominican Republic currently store a total of 1,978,618,539 tons of carbon (CO2).
According to all the biodiversity indexes, the semi-humid broadleaf forest and moist broadleaf forest strata have the greatest diversity of species, with 235 and 230 different plant species present. It is followed by the dry forest that averages 177 species.
Regarding the regeneration of forests, the report shows that the average density is 28,014 plants/ha (plants per hectare). In the strata of mangroves, humid broadleaved forest and dry forest, the greatest amount of regeneration was found, with 52,233 plants/ha, 35,098 plants/ha and 32,623 plants/ha.
The inventory began in 2015 with the planning and execution phase. The previous forest cover study dated to 1972, by an initiative of the United Nations Food Organization (FAO).
The 2018 study was funded by the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ) and its Regional Program for Reduction of Deforestation Emissions and Forests Degradation in Central America and the Dominican Republic, the Central American Commission for Environment and development and the Cooperative Fund for Forests Carbon of the World Bank.
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Ministry of Environment
25 February 2019