Dominican Republic environmental assessment

Abstract

In 1981 USAID sponsored the first Country Environmental Profile (CEP) in the Dominican Republic. For the last two decades that seminal study has been the only comprehensive analysis on the state of the Dominican environment. The object of this current research effort is to update, on the basis of secondary data sources, the 1981 work. This update will provide a point of comparison for the 1981 CEP. In so doing, it will demonstrate major trends that have occurred in key environmental areas—soil, land use and vegetative cover, water quantity, quality and use, institutional structure for environmental management, policy—in the last 20 years. This study also provides recommendations on the country’s most pressing environmental problems. These recommendations, along with their underlying rationale, are offered to Dominican environmental sector decision-makers, their partners in the private sector and the non-governmental organization (NGO) community, and international donors as an action agenda for the conservation and sustainable use of the country’s natural resources and for the reduction of vulnerability.