The Incredible and Sad Story of Boca de Cachón: How a Rural Community in the Hispaniola Is in a Prolonged, Heartless, and Predictable Climate Crisis

Abstract

This article aims to briefly review the socio-economic impact caused by the flooding of Lake Enriquillo on the inhabitants of Boca Cachón due to the complex local phenomenon related to climate variability. Between 2003 and 2014, Boca de Cachón and the communities surrounding Lake Enriquillo were deeply affected by flooding of the Lake’s rising waters. Lake Enriquillo is the largest wetland in the Caribbean and the first designated RAMSAR site. In turn, Boca de Cachón could be considered the first human settlement formally displaced because of climate variability in the Dominican Republic and probably one of the first in the Americas in the twenty-first century. Boca de Cachón is a rural Municipal District located to the northwest of the municipality of Jimaní, with a population of around 3000 inhabitants on the southwest border with the Republic of Haiti and located in the Biosphere Reserve Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo. Given the future climatic scenarios for the Dominican Republic and the possible climate change that could exacerbate by excess or, by default, the socio-environmental problems in the Lake’s belt, it is necessary to support the communities in their capacity-building processes. The lessons learned from Boca de Cachón can serve as a learning space for adaptation processes in rural environments in the Caribbean region.

Understanding Governance in the Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo Biosphere Reserve: An Empirical Approach

“…It can be stated that the latent and manifests conflicts and crises about access to lands in its resources in the RBJBE, such as the expansion of avocado plantations, agriculture livestock in protected areas, as well as mining activities and tourism development (Gómez-Valenzuela et al, 2021; Gomez-Valenzuela et al, 2021), after its creation in 2002 are related to lack of understanding and the gap in implementing the BR concept and still governing its landscapes under the rationalize of traditional PAs. PAs are spaces legally devoted to biodiversity conservation in land and coastal-marine ecosystems and thus are considered consistent tools to achieve conversation goals through different management categories (Leroux et al, 2010; UICN, 2019; Watson et al, 2014).…”

“…Poverty and illegal immigration are socioeconomic factors that add conflicts concerning access to natural resources and have previously been identified as challenges to conserving the reserve's biodiversity (Leon et al, 2011). Added to the situation above depicted is the still challenging socioeconomic situation of the north side of the RBJBE, generated by the flooding of Lake Enriquillo, which almost doubled its surface between 2003 and 2014 (from around 200 km to approximately 395 km) and which ended with estimated global losses between US$50 and US$70 million (Gomez-Valenzuela et al, 2021). All those mentioned socioeconomic, political, institutional, and environmental factors together exert direct pressure on the natural resources and on the ecosystem services provided by the RBJBE, affecting the efficiency of its governance, generating local conflicts, and limiting the potential for achieving the reserve's conservation and sustainable development goals.…”