Transcript of Web Audio Chat Featuring Andrés Ferrer

Director, The Nature Conservancy in the Dominican Republic

Andrés Ferrer:  Well, our major partner, of course, is the government of the DR. But, at the same time, we are working with local NGOs and also working with bilateral and multilateral agencies.  We have an ecological restoration project under discussion with the World Bank that has a poverty alleviation component.  We are implementing and the government is adopting eco-regional planning as a standard conservation methodology for the National System of Protected Areas.

We are working with a local organization in Samaná Bay to support development of conservation area planning for the bay and the network of protected areas.  We are working with the National Botanical Garden to develop strategies to insure conservation of high watersheds in Madre de las Aguas.  We are working with the National Aquarium of the DR and fostering collaboration with the Aquarium of Santiago de Cuba and the National Aquarium in Havana to work on the conservation of marine mammals. We are supporting an important research to identify the breeding and spawning areas for several of the most important marine creatures with economic potential.  We want to identify such sites so those sites can benefit from a degree of protection, especially when the spawning season comes in.
 
We are working with community groups, local NGOs to implement strategies that overlap their mission and our mission.  Whenever you work in conservation anywhere in the world, you will see that the mission and the strategies of the Conservancy overlap with that of partners.

So we are working with those many partners in specific sites, but we want to insure that the work we do can be disseminated throughout the National System of Protected Areas. For example, we worked on a project with turtle nesting monitoring last year (by the way, we discovered two new nesting sites in which we are working now with the government to foster management activities to protect during nesting season).  But we have expanded the project from its original base in Parque Jaragua, and it’s now occurring also in the Montecristy National Park and Del Este National Park.  So we try to leverage successes by disseminating lessons learned in places that share similar resources or similar threats.

Jim Peterson:  And how do you do that?  Are you sharing the results of your work beyond the Dominican Republic?

Andrés Ferrer:  Yes, we are responsible for conservation work in Haiti and Cuba, as well.  Both Haiti and Cuba we work mostly with government, and if you would assess the islands of Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica, you would see that there are great commonalities in their natural resources.  So in all probability, a strategy that works here will probably work in Haiti or in Cuba or in Jamaica with minor adaptation.

What we do is try to understand the governments’ goals and the governments’ strategies and see how we can align our priorities and our strategies with those of the governments.  And it is working.  It was really difficult, for example, to begin working in Cuba, but we have a successful collaboration in compliance with US law and in compliance with Cuban law, as well.

Vanessa, from the Dominican Republic:  I have visited many of the areas undergoing tourism development in the DR such as Samaná Bay and Bavaro, and I am horrified at some of the abuses of natural resources in those areas.  How can the DR be talking about the protection of these resources when examples are in opposition to conservation principles?

Andrés Ferrer:  Well, first let me say that the Secretariat of Environment of the DR was only recently created in August 2000. So before then the DR had a number of agencies and government departments working on these issues without any coordination. As a result of the creation of the ministry, a number of laws and regulations have been imposed, but let’s keep in mind that this is starting almost from scratch.

Today there are rules and regulations that almost every hotel needs to abide to, and I’m certain that most of the hotels are frequently visited and inspected for compliance. It’s not perfect, it’s not paradise.  There is a great deal to do, but, given the lack of resources, the lack of skills, and the recent integration of this ministry, it will take some time before some results can be seen.

With international cooperation we are in the process of making the Environment department more efficient and putting it in a position where it does not necessarily react to environmental threats but acts to prevent such threats from occurring.

Daniel, from Ecuador:  I am working on rural tourism projects and it’s usually not easy to get local people to join community meetings. What sort of methods or tactics have you seen be successful in engaging local communities in conservation projects?

Andrés Ferrer:  Well, as I said before, the most important ingredient is gaining the respect of the people and working to build relationships of trust.  I would say, again, that the most important thing is develop such relations, identify who the leaders are, then help them organize and unite.  Often, poor communities just don’t have the time. You’ve got to organize around a priority. If you produce corn, organize in an association of corn producers.  If you use the resources of a river, organize as users of this river.  Organize, unite, identify leaders, promote democracy in the organization, and then understand how and why those people are surviving.

And then all those practices, unsustainable and sustainable, will come forward. Next try to find the solutions within the local community.  Try to look for the case of the goat eating the invasives, because, when a strategy is born within the community, they own that strategy.  They will work hard to make it work because it is their strategy.  You don’t want to get there and start giving lessons on how to do things.

Among the kinds of things that they are doing, find a couple that work and invest resources and technology in streamlining those practices. And it will work, but it’s complex, and it will take time.  There are no easy solutions.  It’s really hard, and you must be patient, and you must, to some extent, put yourself in their shoes.

Jim Peterson:  I’d like to thank Andrés Ferrer, the Director of the Nature Conservancy’s Dominican Republic program for joining us for this web chat.  Thank you, Andrés.

Andrés Ferrer:  Thank you, and thanks to everyone for those wonderful questions and giving us the opportunity to align the work we are doing here.

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