Germany?s Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, announced the cancellation of an international workshop on protected areas scheduled for Santo Domingo in July as a means of protesting the handling of the Sectoral Protected Areas Bill, now back for study in the National Congress.
The workshop was intended to define the protected areas both nationally and internationally, as well as make recommendations to sustain eco-tourism in these areas for the benefit of everyone concerned.
The workshop was to be the first step to prepare for the Seventh Conference of Members of Agreement on Biological Diversity.
In spite of the widespread national and international opposition, the DR Congress approved the bill to modify most of the Protected Areas of the Dominican Republic just one week before the elections. The previous boundaries of the protected areas had been defined, in part, with the assistance of the German government.
Trittin?s statement to the press also expressed his concerns that the modifications would permit hotel construction on very delicate areas of vast national and international biosphere importance. As examples, he pointed out that the nesting grounds for the Caribbean?s largest sea turtle would disappear and the reduction of the mangroves would seriously compromise local fisheries, if the amendments were to go through. Writer Manases Sepulveda points out that from the United Nations down to the local ecological groups, the clamor against the proposed modifications has been universal.