Update from Adam Dickinson & Elisa Bernier from Dominican Republic

http://www.endadom.org.do/

Well, it’s been a little over three weeks since we landed in the Dominican Republic, and plenty has been happening!  Here in the Dominican Republic, we’re working for an organization called ENDA-Dominicana (ENDA stands for Environment and Development Action, and is an international NGO based out of Senegal).  After landing in the country, we spent the first couple of days reviewing the documentation of the projects to get a better sense of what we would like to do.  There was a lot to go through, and it still feels like there are tons to learn. ENDA-Dom has been active in environmental and community development projects for over thirty years, so it’s no surprise that only a handful of people are aware of the full scope of their involvement throughout Dominican Republic.   

We also spent a good portion of the first two weeks figuring out our living situation.  Since our internships are based around the town of Cotuí, we’re primarily living at the apartment that our director rents there.  The apartment, we should add, is a palace compared to our modest digs at Falls Brook.  It is huge, has all the amenities one could want, and is in a brand new building.  It is also right next to one of the most happening nightclubs in Cotuí, the De Melissa Car Wash – so named because it is, in fact, a car wash during the day.  Many nightspots are similarly repurposed during the work day, which helps to explain why a town of 17 000 people has three massive car washing establishments.  Multi-functional landscape elements: THIS is permaculture.  We’re also renting a (far more humble) room in Santo Domingo because our work requires us to spend a day or two every week in the capital at ENDA’s main office.  The lady of the house has rented to interns before, so she knows what to expect from us. 

The main ENDA project that we’re working with is both super interesting, and very controversial.  ENDA has partnered with a large Canadian mining company, Barrick Gold, to carry out a reforestation and community development project in the area around the Barrick mine, near Cotuí.  The project itself is pretty extensive, as the area stretches from the Pueblo Viejo mine all the way to Los Haitises National Park, on the eastern coast.  The idea is to encourage landowners to plant trees on their land for the purpose of either having managed woodlots or agroforestry systems.  This would allow people to obtain an economic yield from the trees they plant, either from timber harvesting or the sale of fruits such as cocoa, plantain, or citrus.  Naturally, since the major corporate partner is a giant mining company, controversy has followed – there are protests against the mine every so often, and we’ve been told to keep a low profile when those occur.  We’ve also been shown around some of the other ENDA projects in the area – they’ve been supporting a bunch of small woodworking businesses and sawmills, with the goal of increasing local production.  While the Dominican Republic has incredible forest resources and an advanced management system, it still imports something like 90% of its lumber because the local industry has not been able to match demand.  Many of the difficulties that local industries face is due to the extremely stringent laws surrounding the right to cut down trees for lumber, which have been in place for over 50 years, since the Trujillo dictatorship.  Ironically, the result of these environmental protection laws is that lumber is imported from countries that suffer from overharvesting, such as Honduras and Brazil. 
 

Over the last week or so, we’ve been figuring out where we interns fit into all of this.  Our boss in Santo Domingo has urged us to get to work on spreading the word about the project, since there has not been a lot of publicity since the planting started last year, and the project staff have not had time to publicize their results.  In addition to the promotion/website work, we’ve been accompanying the technical staff of the project into the field to help with surveys and follow-up with project partners.  These visits allow us to interview involved members in order to improve dialogue between stakeholders and gather information to relay results publicly.  We’re also realizing there are lot of opportunities for collaboration through the network of interns in the area who are working on similar projects.  To make sure our outreach efforts continue after we leave in March, we are working on youth capacity building programs to teach them how to carry on with website updating and project promotion. 

And that’s not all!  We’ve also been meeting amazing people.  Our co-workers in the Cotuí and Santo Domingo offices have been amazing friends and supports over the last weeks.  We had two very memorable couchsurfing experiences with wonderful, generous hosts while we were finding places to stay and becoming acquainted with the Dominican life.  The project partners that we have met in the villages around Cotuí have been incredible and welcomed us into their homes from the beginning.  We’ve also met some international interns from Canada and Korea, and have heard of others from Japan and the United States in the area.  All in all, I think we’re in for a really wonderful few months!