The environmentalist Luis Carvajal denounced on Friday, 1 July 2022 that the Francisco Alberto Caamaño National Park is prey to more than a thousand active ovens used to manufacture charcoal. He criticized lack of action by the government to combat the continuous extraction of guayacán wood and that of other trees from the natural reserve.
Carvajal said that the future and the present of the Dominican Republic are turning into smoke, ashes, hunger and thirst.
“Water, agricultural production, climate balance, biodiversity, ecological tourism, sustainable development, security in the face of extraordinary events, social and environmental resilience are words that sound very good in speeches and official documents,” he said. He pointed out the reality would require the use of their antonyms.
The ecologist pointed out that what is happening in the Francisco Alberto Caamaño National Park is a sign that the country is advancing in a sustained and sustainable way towards definitive disaster.
He said that the authorities of the Ministry of Environment, the heads at the National Environmental Protection Service (SENPA) or Environmental Police, the provincial governors and the mayors are aware of this situation but have yet to act accordingly.
Luis Carvajal said that the government is too busy setting up public-private alliances, trusts and in communicating what it understands it has changed in the country, “although everything remains the same.”
He said that complying with and enforcing the law means the government has to act against the powers that be, their own and adverse cronies, those who feed or are fed by the party system and past financiers, current or potential future voters. “The burial continues. Let us not forget that the corpse in the coffin is us, all of us without exception,” he said.
The Francisco Alberto Caamaño National Park was created to conserve the extensive biodiversity in the portion of the Central Mountain Range that touches the Caribbean Sea, with views of Ocoa Bay and Caracoles Beach.
Last week, Carvajal convened 63 environmental and social organizations at the state university (UASD) to denounce other cases of environmental violations. These include the deteriorating of the Los Haitises National Park, the extraction of aggregates in La Vega and Moca, the ecological damage caused by the construction of the Las Placetas hydroelectric dam, the mining exploitation in Barahona and San Juan and the expansion of the Barrick Gold mining company and its tailing dam. The environmentalists criticized the mining concessions in San Juan and the Valle region, in Restauración and other water-producing areas.
The Abinader administration has yet to name a Minister of Environment. Vice President Raquel Peña is the acting minister of Environment. The past minister, Orlando Jorge Mera was murdered in his office last month. State prosecutors attribute to his non-compliance with extending irregular permits the reason of his killing.
4 July 2022