Fernández: Promises to push environmental impact laws and plant 100 million trees in Dominican Republic
Leonel Fernández Reyna
The proposals of Fuerza del Pueblo for the environment
In his 2020-2024 government program, the presidential candidate for the People’s Force party, Leonel Fernández Reyna, contemplates the protection of the environment and natural resources with a view to achieving sustainability, which implies maintaining a sufficient natural heritage to increase the human well-being, protecting the life cycles of oxygen, water and nutrients, as well as the sources of raw materials used, and ensuring waste decreases.
It promises to formulate the missing sectoral laws, namely, the Solid Waste Law, the Climate Change Law, the General Water Law, the Law of Coastal Marine Spaces, and the missing regulations and pertinent modifications to the existing legal framework to bring it into line with the Constitution.
Prepare the regulations of the sectoral law on forest resources, that of payment for environmental or ecosystem services, and sectoral of biodiversity. Support the approval of the Law of Coastal-Marine Spaces, which includes the guarantee of access to the beaches of the population, within the framework of the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic.
Design and establish the National System of Environmental Information and Natural Resources. Updating and execution of the National Strategy for Environmental Education. Update and prioritize the execution of the management and strategic plans of the Sierra de Bahoruco, J. Armando Bermúdez, Valle Nuevo, José del Carmen Ramírez, Los Haitises, and Jaragua Bahoruco-Enriquillo Biosphere Reserve national parks.
To increase forest cover, Fernández plans to plant 100 million trees in the upper part of the priority basins with endemic and native species in the area.
Ensure public access to beaches as established in the Constitution of the Republic.
Prepare the inventory, characterization, and monitoring of underground aquifers, especially those located in the eastern part of the country.
Modernize the protected areas, management model. Update the National Policy for the Effective Management of the National System of Protected Areas (SINAP) and decentralize the management of its conservation units.
Encourage entrepreneurship through transformation and recycling. Encourage and/or promote the design and implementation of technologies, policies, processes, and regulations with the criteria of a circular economy. Establish bio-management plants for the transformation of organic waste into fertilizers for agriculture, biogas among other products. Create platforms that facilitate transactions between companies with waste materials and companies that could use such materials as inputs in their production processes. Formalization of the recycling system and aligning the Government’s strategy regarding smart competitiveness, among other proposals.