Environment offers jobs and homes to Valle Nuevo squatters

Santo Domingo.- Environment minister FranciscoDominguez on Friday said conserving Valle Nuevo National Park is an urgentpriority, since seven of every 10 Dominicans benefit from the waters of therivers born there.

The official pledged however, to launch aprogram whose first part would provide the villagers with as many as 50 homes,and have been offered jobs as park rangers and in nurseries, with a salary of7,000, and health insurance as well.

He said the waters from the protected area supplymore than a dozen aqueducts are and are also a source of electricity, so its destructionshould be prevented, because "it ‘ a great source of life."

"Valle Nuevo is the mother of thewaters. To continue this process of deterioration is to destroy Valle Nuevo, hesaid, any action to protect the park benefits the communities," Dominguezsaid, adding that around 15 percent of its surface area is nearly irreparably,"and such a problem requires taking quick decisions."