Las Galeras heads toward a sustainable biodiversity destination

Press Release

Las Galeras.- Dominican Republic.-  Aimed at becoming a sustainable tourist destination with biodiversity indicators, the District Board of Las Galeras, Samaná, together with the German Cooperation for Development, GIZ; the ministries of Environment and Tourism, the tourism sector and the community, have embarked on the path to be certified as the world’s first sustainable and biodiversity destination, by the international certifier TourCert.

“The District Board Las Galeras recognizes the importance and benefits that sustainable tourism and the incorporation of biodiversity criteria can provide to the Municipal District, so we seek to facilitate this process towards certification,” said Las Galeras District Board director Cecilio Garcia Javier.

To date, Las Galeras has created a Sustainability Council formed by several business sectors, as a basic structure to manage, promote and monitor actions related to certification.

In addition, work analysis has been started with 20 destination companies to analyze their relationship with sustainability and biodiversity, through checklists.

“As a result of this analysis, participating companies must create a plan to improve their management to be accredited as companies associated with the destination at the end of this process, which is expected to last 12 months,” the organizations said in a statement.

“We have found in Las Galeras, a municipality with a work structure and a large amount of natural resources that has the possibility of positioning and managing a tourist destination in a sustainable manner, integrating the biodiversity of the site as an added value,” said GIZ Biodiversity and Business Program in Central America and Dominican Republic director, Svenja Paulino.