The Nature Conservancy - Transcript

Transcript of Web Audio Chat Featuring Andrés Ferrer

Director, The Nature Conservancy in the Dominican Republic

Diana from Calgary, Alberta, Canada: What sort of responses do you typically receive from local people in regards to conservation, and are you often welcomed with open arms or do most believe that there are more important things to deal with than conservation?

Andrés Ferrer: People tend to prioritize issues according to importance, and, if you’re poor, survival will be your number one item on the list. However, in any poor community, almost everyone realizes the needs for conserving the environment. It’s incredible. They are very aware. But it may be second or third item on their list.

The key for success is supporting such practices that they have validated as beneficial for their well-being and for the environment. That way they have ownership of the solution. It is not a big NGO coming to a far, remote location and telling them what to do. No, no, no. There are things that they are doing that need to be identified, studied and improved, so they will continue doing some of the things that they do. But again, there are no simple strategies or fast solutions.

Carrie in Durham, North Carolina: Can you please discuss the effects of large-scale, all-inclusive tourism on poverty in the Dominican Republic. How does the rise of eco-tourism in the Dominican Republic affect poverty?

Andrés Ferrer: By the end of 2006, the DR may receive some 3.5 million tourists. Today, large-scale, all-inclusive tourism fuels the economy with jobs and hard currency, but at the expense of natural resources—species and ecosystem loss due to visitation density, contamination from petro-chemicals, poor waste management. At this point, the environmental movement in the Dominican Republic is confronting economic interests planning to develop pristine coastal and marine environments in protected areas that harbor unique endemic species and scenic views—probably the last great marine places in Hispaniola.

The real challenge for government is enforcing existing policies. The challenge for the tourist sector and environmentalist is to gear into an environmentally aware segment of the market—to reengineer the DR tourist office to address that segment of the market that has not yet been reached. The conscious traveler is willing to enjoy culture and nature. I would say government policy is a key to that.

Today there are, for example, 90,000 hotel rooms in the DR supporting these major economic tourist activities, a former law that doesn’t exist anymore, the Tourist Incentive Law, may be responsible for such impressive development. It provided tax and investment incentives to investors in the tourist sector. That’s why the DR is today the preferred destination for sun and beaches, tourism that we call it.

However, we have a national system of protected areas. We have desert, we have waterfalls, we have high peaks where there is frost every night, we have saltwater lakes with crocodiles, you name it.

I think the DR could diversify to the eco-tourism market if government incentives can be provided to investors, subject that they partner with communities and NGOs. The unique resources of Hispaniola are there for enjoyment, and that’s an indispensable component. Policy you can develop. Great biodiversity you either inherit or you don’t have it.

Brian from Cambridge, Massachusetts: Andrés, how will the people and the representatives be convinced to balance the needs of today with those of the future when there is so little trust in government or community? Do you see a future where green issues, conservation issues, will be among the foremost in national and local elections in the Dominican Republic?

Andrés Ferrer: I like to think that the future is already here. We see already in the DR environmental issues influencing political outcomes at provincial and municipal levels at least, although not at national level.

You know, I work with communities to support environmental education and foster sustainable activities with the potential to increase local income. At governmental level, you need to understand that your best bet is to promote policies. And, if we have a few showcase sites in which biodiversity conservation through poverty alleviation was a success, we have a number of examples where government policy made a change.

In one of our projects in the village of Los Dajaos, community acreage of agricultural lands was decreased 70 percent, and poverty eradicated, through a shift to more sustainable agricultural methods. So that strategy worked, not perfect, but it keeps improving.

From the 60s to the late 90s, the government subsidized propane fuel as a substitute for fuel wood for cooking, banned logging, and opened timber exports with low tax, in some way subsidizing import of timber. To dismantle the deeply rooted culture of cooking with fuel wood, hundreds of thousands of small propane stoves and tanks were distributed in the buffer zones of the national parks and in rural areas.

Today, 46 years later, the DR has 32 percent vegetation cover. It took decades to put in place that government policy, but it worked. It’s not perfect, it needs improvement, but in conclusion we must continue partnering with central and local governments and not abandon pursuits to foster appropriate government policies and partnerships. I realize it’s time consuming, maybe frustrating at times, but the return on your investment will be several thousand fold.

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