Controlled ranching aims to protect Dominican watersheds

Santo Domingo.-I To conserve water as a fundamental resource for life and mitigating the effects of climate change, the Environment Ministry on Thur. issued resolution 0004-2021, which establishes the limit in the landscapes of mountains, mountain ranges and mountainous areas to prevent livestock practices in those areas.

This resolution establishes respect for the integrity and vegetation cover from the foothills to its peak, taking into account that livestock should not be carried out at the cost of harming water production, which ends with a negative impact on the population in its water availability and that it can even cause death by thirst of the herds themselves when an extreme drought occurs.

Aware that cattle raising is an important economic activity, the resolution allows its practice in a regulated manner and under rules in the valleys and intra-mountain plains.

“Riparian forests, ravines and rivers, even in parcels of particulars, must be conserved, and in any case, repopulated with endemic and native species typical of each site, maintaining the thirty (30) meters on both sides, established in the Article 129 of Law 64-00,” the resolution says.