A feature in N Digital looks into the controversial career of current Environment Minister Angel Estevez. Estevez has been minister of Agriculture and Environment in the two Medina administrations. N Digital reports that with less than two years in office, Environment Minister Angel Estevez’s term has met with scandals that have lead sectors of Dominican society on several occasions to demand he be removed.
He has had constant clashes with environmental groups. Estévez’s latest scandal is the granting of a permit for the construction of a hotel in the Cotubanamá National Park (Parque Nacional del Este), near the island of Saona. Such was the reaction that President Danilo ordered construction to stop. The President named a commission that includes the minister himself, to review the legality of the construction of the hotel.
N Digital recalls that upon Estevez’s appointment as Environment Minister, the removal of farming from the Valle Nuevo National Park took a step back. Estevez allowed farmers to return to plant strawberries, potatoes and onions, among other items. The Moscoso Puello Foundation has accused Minister Estévez on several occasions of allowing the return of large machinery, equipment and supplies that had already been evicted from the park by Estevez’s predecessor, Francisco Domínguez Brito.
But the lax attitude to farming in protected areas does not stop in Valle Nuevo. The Sierra de Bahoruco is another of the nightmares under Estévez’s environmental management. The minister himself has justified planting avocados in this protected area, stating categorically “that he will not destroy a single tree that has been planted.” The park is now being used for the planting of Hass avocados for export. Avocados trees are large consumers of water. Environmental groups maintain that the Bahoruco Sierra is essential water source for the Dominican Republic and Haiti and the avocados will put stress on this water source.
The depredation of endemic species in the Félix Servio Ducoudray Natural Monument Scientific Reserve, better known as Las Dunas de Baní, also suffered under the term of Estevez. For weeks, trucks preyed on the natural area, until the bishop of the Baní diocese, Víctor Masalles, denounced the illegal act through social networks. It was not until then that the authorities ordered the reinforcement and subsequent stop to the mining of construction materials from the zone.
Guillermo Moreno, presidential candidate of the Alianza País party, calls Estévez the number one enemy of environmental preservation and protection in the Dominican Republic.
Ángel Estévez was appointed in May 2018, replacing Francisco Domínguez Brito at the Ministry of Environment.
As reported in N Digital, Estevez term at the Ministry of Environment was a follow up to his controversial work when he headed the Ministry of Agriculture. He was accused of monopolizing agriculture imports. Estévez has been criticized for serious conflicts of interest with his family businesses that represent agrochemicals and food imports (Eurosuministros, Tavan Caribe SRL, Agroterra Dominicana, Comercial Estévez, SRL, Joara Import, SRL, according to Al Pais deputy Fidelio Despradel.
Read more in Spanish:
N Digital
Hoy
Hoy
30 January 2020