Legal, political, and social reflections on the Dominican environmental framework

Abstract

These reflections involve several intertwined issues such as climate change, environmental assessments, sustainable development, the environment, and ecosystems, among others, in the Dominican Republic. At the same time, it deals with the economic, political, and social reality of the country, since—as we are human—our realities, uses, and customs (those that affect the environment) are closely related to the actions that arise from our activities. This conjunction of human activities plays an essential role in the effects to the environment. Given this context, we examine the implications of all this activity for the Dominican Republic and lay out the possibilities for decision-making with regard to this reality, promoting a rational use of accessible public tools like environmental impact assessments, and finally, deciding whether it is necessary to consider a change to the normative frameworks of these assessments.