Programme description

Title: Management and Protection of Natural Resources in Watersheds
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Dominican Republic
Lead executing agency: Dominican State Secretariat of Economy, Planning and Development
Overall term: 2002 to 2012

Context

Deforestation and inappropriate land use in rural regions of the Dominican Republic are causing erosion and soil degradation, which in the long run are damaging important water catchment areas. The livelihoods of the poor rural population are threatened and the long-term water supply of the Dominican Republic is no longer secure.

A lack of state support and appropriate knowledge means that the rural population has no profitable and sustainable alternatives to the form of land use currently practised. The lack of a reliable land title system and the legal uncertainty surrounding small-scale land ownership also hamper decisions to invest in long-term forms of land use that are more environmentally sound.

The poor coordination of state bodies and civil society organisations, and the limited influence the environment ministry has on decision-making in other policy areas are hampering the effective and sustainable management of natural resources in catchment areas and the protection of ecologically valuable natural spaces.

The programme supports reforms to the management of water catchment areas. In particular, it aims to strengthen the role of local authorities and civil society and to instigate development at local level that is both economically viable and sustainable.

Objective

Sustainable management of strategically important catchment areas, organised and implemented by government authorities and civil society, is helping to ensure a permanent water supply for the Dominican Republic and the entire island of Hispaniola.

Specific objectives are:

• The environment ministry has improved its capacity to partake in consensus-based policy-making dialogue with other ministries, local authorities and civil society; it is in a position to steer and advise the increasingly decentralised environmental management competencies.
• Local authorities use available budgets appropriately for purposes of environmental management, and have become qualified service providers for local economic development.
• New and improved products have given producer cooperatives access to new markets.
• Civil society organisations play a greater role in managing protected areas; they have improved their participatory planning skills and their capacity to manage resources sustainably and to protect valuable natural spaces.

Approach

The main focus of the programme is capacity development for national and local institutions. It works with these institutions to create innovative policies for the management of catchment areas. These should promote local authorities’ responsibility and contribute to the continued decentralisation of the environment ministry. Key partners are the environment ministry, local authorities and civil society organisations.

In the upper reaches of two catchment areas (Rio Yaque del Norte and Rio Artibonito), the programme supports the development of value chains for products and services such as coffee, timber and eco-tourism, as well as the introduction of improved land use technologies. It uses appropriate models of participatory environmental management and alternative, environmentally sustainable production methods. In this way, the programme is contributing directly to improvements in the quality of life of the local population, and is helping to conserve ecologically valuable natural spaces.

Close collaboration with GIZ’s cross-border project ‘Alleviating poverty through the sustainable use of natural resources in the transboundary catchment area of the Río Artibonito’ and the project ‘Natural resource management in the border region with Haiti’ (KfW Entwicklungsbank) is creating synergies useful for the achievement of the anticipated results. 

Results achieved so far

• The process of updating national environmental policy and legislation is underway.
• In-depth strategies for environmental education and raising public awareness of environmental issues have been developed.
• Individual local authorities have established their own environmental management bodies.
• The conditions needed to facilitate inter-institutional coordination at national level have been established.
• A mechanism for the payment of environmental services has allowed reforestation and other measures for sustainable resource management to be carried out in the Yaque del Norte catchment area. Appropriate models and recommendations for sustainable management of natural resources are being implemented.
• A number of local authorities have set up a common interest association entitled Madre de las Aguas. This has already established itself as a coordination mechanism for the protection of regional catchment areas.
• The establishment of cooperative ventures between the environment ministry (SEMARENA), local authorities (Restauración and Pedro Santana) and the producers association ASODEFOREST has enabled civil society to be better integrated into planning and decision-making processes connected with the timber value chain. Special attention was paid to integrating women into these processes.
• Under the environment ministry as lead agency, development cooperation actors in the environmental field now adhere to the country’s priorities, which improves their coordination in the spirit of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005).