Local February 5, 2025 | 4:04 pm

Support grows for mining ban near Pomier Caves

Santo Domingo.- The Natural Sciences and Environment Commission of the Dominican Republic’s Academy of Sciences has endorsed the cessation of mining operations near Las Cuevas del Pomier, supporting long-standing demands from environmental and scientific communities in San Cristóbal. These caves, part of the Pomier Anthropological Reserve, hold significant archaeological and cultural heritage, with over 35 caves featuring ancient rock art. However, decades of unsustainable mining have severely damaged the cave structures, degraded invaluable pictographs, and harmed local biodiversity.

Mining activities have also contaminated underground water sources that supply the San Cristóbal aqueduct and La Toma tourist center, making extraction in the area increasingly unsustainable. The Academy emphasized the urgency of ensuring the final withdrawal of mining companies, as recently announced by Rafael Salazar, Executive Director of EEGHID, while urging authorities to follow through on their commitments. Additionally, they called on the Dominican State to hold mining companies financially accountable for environmental remediation, given their failure to comply with legal obligations under Law 64-00.

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Paul Tierney
February 6, 2025 8:44 am

The text “given their failure to comply with legal obligations” is symbolic of bad attitudes against supporting laws of the country. People and companies pooh pooh the laws, do as they please, especially when authorities are too lazy to get up off their seats to do the enforcement they are charged to do. Inject favors into the formula and we know why laws are forgotten.

The damages done to the caves speaks loudly about the bad attitudes.