Dominican Republic: Environmentalists rally to block cement plant

Published by MAC on 2009-06-08
Source: Domican Today, The Socialist Worker

The rise of an important new environmental struggle in the Dominican Republic

Dominican environmentalists rally to block cement plant
Domican Today
1st June 2009
http://www.dominicantoday.com

Santo Domingo. - Dominican environmentalists are rallying to block cement plant project which even if is found outside the confines of the Los Haitises National Park, would damage the aquifers, said the expert Luis Carvajal.

Now the beleaguered project also faces allegations regarding conflict of interests with one of its stakeholders. "The ecological consequences will be devastating not only for which they live there, but for the population in general sense, because their water-bearing reserves," said Carvajal, an environmentalist and member of the Dominican Academy of Science.

Carvajal said the cement plant of the Concorcio Minero Dominicano will be built exactly on the Los Haitises hydrographic system. According to the "National Hydro-geological Study of the Dominican Republic Phase II Los Haitises hydro-geological unit," is not only concentrated within the ecological reserve.

"Part of the South limit of Samaná Bay is located to the northeast of the island, forming, to the north the Eastern end of the unit of the Cibao Valley, limited at the west by the northeast end of the unit of the Central Mountain range, to the south by the unit of the Eastern Coastal Plain and to the east by the unit of the Eastern Mountain range" states the 2004 study supported by the European Union.

However the developers argue that the construction of the cement plant, in the village Gonzalo, would benefit Monte Plata, considered one of the country's most depressed areas.

Conflict of interest

But allegations of conflict of interest arose the weekend to coincide with the protests staged in Santo Domingo and Monte Plata province. A source told DT that one of the stakeholders in the project is one of the private sector leaders the Government recruited to help manage some of the national parks.

The source added that one of the arguments the protestors will use to block the project is the extensive ecological damage caused by a similar facility located at Palo Amarillo, Santiago province. On Monday Environment minister Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal insisted that the project isn't within the limits of Los Haitises.

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Dominican Government slams "private interests" in cement plant row
Domican Today
1st June 2009

Santo Domingo. - The Environment Minister on Monday said private interests are behind the protests against the construction of a cement plant in Gonzalo, Monte Plata province (northeast), because the social geologists and groups who today defend Los Haitises National Park, should've also done so four years ago when the Samaná highway was built, which he affirms cut it in half.

Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal said as a Government official adheres to the Executive Branch's instructions, and that's where it requested the plant's construction.

Fernandez Mirabal, interviewed in the TV program on Channel 9, said he's glad Los Haitises "still has defenders" but affirmed that the cement plant will not affect the zone or the protected area, because it features modern technology to keep its particles from harming the environment. "I observe the rules of the State, and there it's less risky because of the distance to the populations."

Environmentalists say the plant will pollute the region's aquifers, and mention a similar factory operating in the Santiago province town Palo Amarillo, which has devastate a large area around it's facility.

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Dominicans defend biodiversity
The rise of an important new environmental struggle in the Dominican Republic
By Emmanuel Santos
The Socialist Worker
28th May 2009
http://socialistworker.org/

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS around the Dominican Republic are mobilizing to stop the construction of a cement factory in the Los Haitises national park. The factory would displace 500 peasant families and degrade one of the most important ecosystems in the country and the Caribbean region.

Los Haitises is located in the municipality of Gonzalo, one of the poorest towns in the country, and is a repository of vast water reservoirs that benefit more than 1 million people.

The move to allow construction of a highly toxic factory amounts to a new government privatization of public lands. It's also part of a recent right-wing assault on civil liberties that led to the outlawing of abortion in April. That success has given the government more confidence to bypass the country's environmental laws.

But resistance is building. On May 16, hundreds of activists set up an encampment in Los Haitises to protest a recent government concession granted to the Consorcio Minero Dominicano (Dominican Mining Consortium) to extract limestone from sedimentary rocks to manufacture cement. In the recent weeks, the local population led huge mobilizations against the mining company to defend the biodiversity that sustains the local economy and their lives.

As soon as news spread about the proposed cement factory, student activists organized a campaign to revoke the government concession. In addition, the left and some labor unions expressed solidarity with the struggle and joined the encampment. Meanwhile, the nominally left-wing Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), the second-largest opposition party, is calling the government to revoke the concession.

The government concession was issued by Jaime David Fernández Mirabal, the environment minister. He is under criticism for going against the advice of his own technicians in the Environment and Natural Resources Department, who issued a report warning of the environmental destruction the construction of a cement factory in Los Haitises could unleash.

Mirabal was vice president from 1996 to 2000 during the first administration of current President Leonel Fernández. That government also privatized national landholdings, including the sale of public beaches in order to attract foreign investment in the tourist sector.

Today, however, many commentators say that Mirabal is out of touch with public opinion, since he refuses to back down in spite of widespread opposition to the cement factory. Geologists and environmentalists have joined the opposition to the factory, pointing out that Mirabal's decision violates more than 20 environmental laws. (Fernández, for his part, is on an official European visit to avoid criticism).

Moreover, a second report issued jointly by the Academy of Science and the Environmental Commission of the State University (UASD) called for the immediate revocation of the government concession and relocation of peasant's communities who have been displaced throughout the years.

Since the 1980s, thousands of Haitian and Dominican peasants have been forcefully removed from Los Haitises by the military. Though the Dominican government promised to pay compensation for their lands and crops, compensation never arrived in most cases. Prior to carrying out any evictions, the government criminalizes peasants with the aid of the mainstream media by accusing them of cutting down trees and destroying the biodiversity of the park.

But the sole purpose of evicting peasants to declare Los Haitises a protected area was to exert more private control over the forest and exploit its natural resources. The real criminals here aren't the local peasants, but politicians and powerful economic interests.

They may not get their way, however. Student activists are bringing together a new generation of environmentalists and left-wingers for the first time to build a united front of sorts. This will lay the ground for a stronger environmentalist movement in the future. It's important that we show solidarity with the people of Los Haitises to win the fight against privatization of national resources and displacement of people from their homes before it is too late.