Green Antilles

From a North Wales newspaper comes a report on a project to conserve the Dominican Republic’s owl populations:

[Pam Broughton of the Llandudno based North Wales Bird Trust] has just returned from the Dominican Republic where she is leading the fight to save four rare species of owl.

…

Two years ago the charity was asked to take the lead role in a conservation project backed by the Dominican Republic government and the country’s Parc Zoological National.

The country’s four endemic owl species the Ashy Faced Owl, the Hispaniola Short Eared Owl, the Hispaniola Stygian Owl, and the Hispaniola Burrowing Owl are believed to be battling for survival.

“This is mainly due to the fact that population growth and increased development is causing the loss of much of their original habitat.

“The Ashy Faced Owl is also facing another threat from the bigger and stronger North American barn owl which also occurs on the island where they compete for nest sites and space to hunt,” said Pam.

The Dominican Owl Conservation Project is breeding owls in captivity, and in 2012 there will be a field study to try to determine how the owls are coping with changes to their habitat and formulate a policy to protect them.

“Education is also very important and while I was there I trained an Ashy Faced Owl called Anna for educational purposes.

“This is the first time in the Dominican Republic that an Ashy Faced Owl has been trained to sit on a glove. And she is being taken into schools to show the children there is nothing to be afraid of.

Find out more in the full article from the North Wales Weekly, in this article from Zoo News Digest and at the Dominican Republic Owl Conservation Project website.

Previously on Green Antilles: The Ridgway’s Hawk: conservation action for one of the Dominican Republic’s endemic birds and Monitoring birdlife in the Dominican Republic.

[Photo: Mario Davalos]

The Caribbean Student Environmental Alliance, along with Reef Check International report on how fishermen in the Dominican Republic are getting involved in environmental conservation in their coastal community:

One investment was to establish a fishermen’s cooperative in the village of Juancho. The prevailing sea currents around Hispaniola come from Santo Domingo, the capital of the D.R. and hit the peninsula where Juancho is located. The amount of plastic garbage which is carried by these currents is enormous and in Juancho, it gets enmeshed in the roots of the magnificent mangroves which line the bay. Haina employed the fishermen during a critical part of the lobster breeding season to deep clean the mangroves. They removed hundreds of bags of plastic bottles. Caribbean SEA gave the fishermen marine and coastal ecology lessons while in the mangrove during their lunch breaks! The fishermen did not realize that corals were alive and how much better they could protect them by not anchoring to or standing on the brain coral or leaving their nets on the massive elkhorn coral. They were really amazed and ready to protect their reefs! Now these fishermen are establishing ecotours so they can show others the treasures of their home and teach others to protect the water, the mangroves and the coral reefs.

Because establishing the fishermen’s cooperative should lead to healthier coral reef habitat, we also wanted to establish a baseline of reef health through Reef Check procedures and volunteer SCUBA divers. Lucy Kreiling, of Columbia SCUBA in South Carolina, had told me several times that her divers like to go above and beyond recreational diving to really do something to help the reefs they love to dive. She put together a crew who paid their way to the Dominican Republic as well as for Reef Check certification from Angel Luis Franco, formerly part of Reef Check D.R. The fishermen took us in their small fishing boats out to the reefs they designated as the best reefs. The fishermen are on a steep learning curve and interacting with a group of divers who care about their reefs and their fish really made an impression on them. However, when we got out to the reef to begin the transects, Tropical Storm Emily started whipping up big swells. Only half of us could complete even the first transect, while the rest of us were feeding the fish as we lost our breakfast! Thankfully, the fishermen introduced us to the amazing healing power of coconut water and we all felt better quickly. The storm arrived the next day and ruined our plans for the survey, but we did engage the divers in a scientific eco tour where they analyzed water samples and observed bird and marine life in the very sheltered mangrove bay of Juancho. They also were able to observe the mountains of marine debris washing in on the waves, wave after wave bringing plastic bottles into the mangrove. The divers from Columbia SCUBA didn’t quite get the dive trip they had hoped for and Juancho didn’t get the Reef Check surveys completed, but these groups taught each other so much about culture, coral reefs, and about good people helping good people to protect our coral reefs. As a result, two of the fishermen are eager to learn to SCUBA dive and be certified as Reef Check EcoDivers so they can keep track of reef health from within their community.

Source.

Previous related posts on Green Antilles: Happy 5th birthday to Reef Check Dominican Republic! and Controlling lionfish in La Caleta marine reserve, the Dominican Republic.

[Photo: ronnig via tripmondo.com]

The World Bank’s Social Development Department, together with the Agriculture and Rural Development Department, and external partners undertook a work program on Local Institutions and Climate Change to address the importance of strong local institutions and their long-term presence in successful implementation of community-based adaptation strategies.

Supported by the Bank-Netherlands Partnership Program, and the Trust Fund for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (Norway-Finland), series of activities were carried out in partnership with the Bank’s regional departments from Africa, Latin America and Middle East regions and the World Bank Institute.

These short videos were prepared in coordination with the World Bank Institute and the local task teams to highlight some of the individual case studies in participating countries. They document some of the challenges of climate risks faced at the local level and show collective local response mechanisms.

For more information on the World Bank’s work in the Dominican Republic, please visit the Bank’s website.

The Dominican Republic recently commissioned its first major wind power installation, which is thought to be the largest in the Caribbean:

Dominican Republic inaugurated its first large-scale wind power project on Tuesday in a move to develop renewable energy sources in the Caribbean country’s crisis-ridden power sector.

President Leonel Fernandez attended the opening of the twin wind parks of Los Cocos and Quilvio Cabrera in Pedernales province in the southern part of Dominican Republic’s frontier with Haiti.

The facility, which involved an investment of around $100 million by private local power companies Punta Cana-Macao (CEPM) and EGE-Haina, has 19 wind towers and will contribute 33 megawatts (MW) to the national electricity network. It will save around 200,000 barrels of oil a year, officials said.

The country’s electricity sector, which relies on costly oil imports, has been in crisis for decades and consumers suffer frequent power blackouts. Private estimates say some 40 percent of Dominicans fail to pay for electricity, with many using illegal hookups to power their homes.

Under a $1.66 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) stand-by program, the government has been slashing hefty subsidies to the electricity sector and raising fees, but it has still budgeted around $350 million in subsidies this year.

A number of wind power projects already exist in the Caribbean — in Jamaica, Cuba, Aruba and Guadelupe — but the Dominican Republic facility was believed to be the largest of its kind so far, EGE-Haina officials said.

EGE-Haina said a second phase of the wind farm project would add an additional 52 MW in 2012.

(Source.)

There are a number of other wind power project proposed or underway in the Dominican Republic; see Dominican Republic Promotes Wind Energy with Support from IDB and, previously on Green Antilles, 50 MW wind energy project for Dominican Republic.

Also of interest: a 1999 wind resource analysis [PDF] for the Dominican Republic, which is embedded below:

[Photo: Reto Fetz]

The government of the Dominican Republic recently published its draft Climate-Compatible Development Plan, which is intended “to serve as a regional model of climate-compatible development”. Here’s an excerpt from the executive summary:

Resolute climate action is a key priority of the Dominican Republic (DR). Our nation on the island of Hispaniola is very vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as coastal flooding worsened by rising sea levels and increasingly severe hurricanes. We view climate action as both a practical preventive effort for ourselves and as our moral responsibility as a nation in an increasingly interdependent world.

At the same time, the economic and social development of our nation remains our highest priority. Building on our solid growth, we are committed to further improving the lives and livelihoods of our citizens by continuing our strong record of economic and social development, and by at least doubling gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by 2030.

However, we recognize that unless we take decisive action, our economic growth will raise our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by about 40% in 2030, far exceeding recommended climate-compatible levels. To prevent this from happening, the DR has resolved to take on the dual challenge of climate-compatible development. Not only do we believe that development and climate action can go hand in hand, we are convinced that they actually reinforce each other when pursued in an integrated strategy.

We therefore intend to more than double GDP by 2030 at the same time as cutting our emissions by half. To guide our work, we have prepared a Climate-Compatible Development Plan (CCDP). The analyses we conducted to flesh out a specific plan for the DR have identified strategies that make climate-compatible development possible.

The WorldWatch Institute’s Revolt Blog has more about climate-compatible development in the Dominican Republic. You can download a PDF of the plan from the WorldWatch site, or browse through the copy embedded below.