Starting in March 2005, a multidisciplinary team made up of national and international technicians from the Directorate of Protected Areas (DAP) and the Project for the Management and Conservation of the Yaque del Norte River (PROCARYN), began activities at the cabinet and field level for the elaboration of the Management Plan of the Juan Bautista Pérez Rancier National Park (PNJBPR).
plan-of-management-of-a-natural-areaThe preparation of the PNJBPR Management Plan is based on the "Methodological Guide for the Preparation and / or updating of Management Plans for the Dominican Republic", developed by the Secretary of the Environment and the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ). The methodological guide establishes the development of a series of activities that allow the development of a pragmatic Management Plan based on the reality of the territory.
Four phases are established for the preparation of the Management Plan:
- Preparatory phase; Diagnostic phase; Technical and legal framework phase; Proposal phase.
During the "diagnosis" phase, the planning team managed to determine that for the development of a "Management Plan" that satisfies socioenvironmental expectations and that initiates a process that allows proper management of "Protected Areas" facing social characteristics, economic and environmental that the territory that delimits the PNJBPR, it is necessary to develop a series of complementary studies.
One of the studies designated as necessary is the “Land Use Capacity Study” (ECUT), a study that seeks the determination in physical terms of the support that a land unit has to be used for certain uses or coverings and / or or treatments. It is generally based on the principle of the maximum intensity of bearable use without causing physical deterioration of the soil (Klingebield and Montgomery 1961). The Land Use Capacity allows defining the use conflict zone in a given territory, with it you can direct actions to mitigate and correct the use of land to achieve a desirable use that can sometimes be considered as a subuse,but that in the logic of ecological fragility is desirable because of the direct benefits of the PNJBPR as a priority resource in the management of "fresh water".
The "Land Use Capacity Study" (ECUT), its main objective is to contribute to the development of an internal zoning of the PNJBPR, being a complementary study to: 1. Diagnosis of Critical Areas (DAC); 2. Rapid Socioeconomic Characterization (CSR); 3. Water Valorization Probe (SVH); 4. Proposal for an Environmental Compensation Approach (CAM); and 5. Updating of the Land Use and Coverage Map.
By having the five technical studies and this ECUT we will be able to have the necessary information for the elaboration of a Management Plan, which bases the protection, management and conservation of the protected area on two transversal axes:
- Payment of Environmental Services under the modality of Environmental Compensation, Strategic Planning based on "Territorial Planning".
The results of this ECUT are the product of a series of participatory actions at the cabinet and field levels that ensure, in addition to the information collected, analyzed and generated, the development of synergies and knowledge shared with key actors and members of the communities, It will be useful during the development of the tools that allow the recommendations made during the development of the ECUT and other technical studies to become operational.
In addition, the ECUT will serve as the basis for:
- Basic information for the development of community and individual Land Use Plans (PLUT), Generation of territorial information, specifically in areas dedicated to agricultural production, for the development of models of "Good Agricultural Practices", The generation of the "map land use conflict ”by having the“ updated map of land use and coverage ”.
An added value of the ECUT is the revalidation of a methodology already used in the sister zone of the "Upper Basin of the Yaque del Norte River" and Municipality of Jarabacoa, by the Project for the Management and Conservation of the Upper Basin of the Yaque del Norte River (PROCARYN), which has allowed the improvement of the methodology, as well as the consolidation of a tool that provides the territorial planners of the "Dominican Republic" to guide and establish a more adequate management of the natural resources of a specific territory.
1.2 Objectives
Overall objective
Develop the “Study of Land Use Capacity” (ECUT) as a complementary tool to other complementary studies (DAC, CSR, SVH, CAM and Updating of Map of Coverage and Land Use), providing the team of Plan planners of Management of the PNJBPR, information that guides them to the development of a realistic zoning and practical proposals in the actions of programs and subprograms of management.
Specific objectives
- Identify the land use capacity of the PNJBPR, allowing the identification of desirable land uses. Prepare an instrument for stakeholders with decision making and direct activities on the management and conservation of natural resources of the PNJBPR. Serve as a basis for the subsequent development of the “land use conflict map” by having the “updated map of land use and coverage”. Establish the base information for the generation of the “Land Use Plan” at the community and individual level.Adapting and validating the methodology for the development of Land Use Capacity Studies for the Cordillera Central region and in the future for the Dominican Republic.
2. Scope of the study
When the need to carry out a series of technical studies was raised, in order to obtain a more realistic zoning and a development of management programs and subprograms with feasible activities to be carried out in the period of execution and the financial resources assigned or to be generated through the "Environmental Compensation Fund" under the proposal for the implementation of the "Environmental Compensation Model". A series of questions arose, both from the multidisciplinary team and from key actors, and could be grouped into the following questions:
- What is a Land Use Capacity Study (ECUT)? Why do a Land Use Capacity Study "(EUCT) in the PNJBPR? What use for the development and implementation of the Management Plan has developing an ECUT?
Before answering each of the three previous questions, it is necessary to clarify that the ECUT, despite not being contained within the “Methodological Guide for the Preparation and / or Updating of Management Plans of the Dominican Republic” which allows add tools (instruments) that facilitate technical information for the deficient development of Management Plans, based on this the planning team proposed the development of the ECUT, a complementary tool for obtaining biophysical information on the soil of the protected area to be developed in the "Diagnosis Phase", as indicated by the flow chart for the preparation of the PNJBPR Management Plan, identified as figure 1.
2.1 What is a Land Use Capacity Study (ECUT)?
The reader of this study will be able to find in “Annex 1” the general and specific concepts, such as the methodological steps described widely, which will be able to clarify deeper questions.
The “Study of Land Use Capacity” is based on landscape ecology, it is not a new science. It is a branch of ecology that emerged in Russia, from Dokuchaev's ideas of 1898, about the interrelationship of all phenomena and objects on the surface of the earth, including human activities and their artifacts. The application of this idea triggered, in the early nineteenth century, the development of landscape science among Russian geographers, and it was applied almost immediately to geochemistry (1920), geobotany (1912-1925), forest science (1914-1925), pedology (1937). Towards the middle of the 19th century,Similar ideas and concepts emerge in Central Europe motivated by the need to identify characteristics and potentialities of the large "empty" territories during the colonization of the Southern Hemisphere by European countries.
Since the 80`s, landscape ecology has had a great development as a consequence of the conjunction of social, technological and scientific factors. Its objective went from the description of the territory based on the distribution and content of the elements that make it up to the development of predictive models, from which hypotheses arise about the interrelationships between spatial configuration and ecological and social processes. This change in approach was enhanced with the contribution of concepts and theories from other disciplines and by the recognition of the remote effects of anthropogenic modifications of ecosystems. The questions asked by land use planners, conservation ecologists, environmental managers, evaluators and auditors,They have changed as a consequence of the recognition of the multiple horizontal interactions between ecosystems or neighboring land uses.
One of the territorial planning tools based on the ecology of the landscape is the ECUT, there are several models for the preparation of the study in Latin America, in this case, a model adapted from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras is used for the “Central Mountain Range of the Dominican Republic” originally developed by the Yaque del Norte River Management and Conservation Project (PROCARYN) for the development of the Land Management Plan for the Municipality of Jarabacoa and the Upper Basin of the Yaque del Norte River.
The “Study of Land Use Capacity” (ECUT), seeks the determination in physical terms of the support that a land unit has to be used for certain uses or covers and / or treatments. It is generally based on the principle of the maximum intensity of bearable use without causing physical deterioration of the soil (Klingebield and Montgomery 1961).
The ECUT is based on land use qualification, which is a grouping of interpretations that are made primarily for agricultural purposes and begins with the distinction of mapping units. It allows some generalizations to be made regarding the potentialities of the soil, limitations of use and management problems. It refers only to a maximum level of application of the soil resource, without it deteriorating, with a rate greater than the rate of its formation. In this context, soil deterioration mainly refers to the dragging and transporting down the slope of soil particles by the action of precipitated water.
Methodologically, the main objectives of the ECUT consist of the valuation and recovery of fragile lands and the recovery of fragile lands, as the first orientation towards an action in this regard and finally, another objective may be the implementation of desired uses.
2.2 Why do a Land Use Capacity Study ”(ECUT) in the PNJBPR?
It is the second question that has been made on several occasions, considering that the ECUT is associated by territorial planners as a tool that is used to provide information in processes of "territorial ordering" at the national, provincial, municipal level and mainly in hydrographic basins..
It is important to indicate that like other technical studies developed for the elaboration of the “PNJBPR Management Plan”, the ECUT by itself does not provide sufficient information for the development of the ideal PNJBPR management scenarios, but the recording by the team technical, the need to guide the socio-productive and conservation characteristics of the PNJBPR, the development of a zoning (and therefore programs and subprograms) integrated into the Management Plan, where "territorial planning" actions are carried out. The above presents an initial paradigmatic perspective, in which the intellectual path that goes from Human Ecology to Factorial Ecology is built,and the classic models about the internal structure of the protected area and its evolution towards the current models that account for the socio-spatial structuring are verified.
It is empirically or deductively known that the PNJBPR, despite having an extension of 910 square kilometers, only 390 square kilometers have some type of forest cover (1. coniferous forests; 2. humid leaf-leaved forests; 3. cloud-leaved forests; and 4. manaclares) the rest of the PNJBPR is under agricultural production, converted into urban areas for 20 communities and 17 individual owners, or fallow forest (agricultural land in rest) and in some parts (very reduced) in agricultural involution (formation of secondary forests).
The category of management assigned by the legal framework establishes the protected area as "National Park", this category automatically conflicts with the reality of use and management of natural resources, to what degree, where and why? are some of the unknowns that seek to clarify. But more important than the questions and their respective answers, are the practical solutions that could be found. The "National Park" management category establishes the following management and conservation objectives:
- Conserve native biotic zones in their natural state, biological diversity and ecological processes for regulating the environment and natural genetic heritage; Provide and promote options for technical and scientific study and research; Facilitate environmental interpretation and education and opportunities for recreation, leisure and tourism; Promote and promote the conservation, recovery and sustainable use of natural resources; Conserve and recover the sources of production of water resources and carry out actions that allow effective control to prevent erosion and sedimentation; Preserve the provision of environmental services derived from protected areas, such as carbon fixation, reduction of the greenhouse effect,contribution to climate stabilization and sustainable use of energy. (Sectoral Law on Protected Areas, February, 2005).
As it is visible, the six objectives assigned to the category of "National Park" are exclusively oriented to the management, conservation and protection of natural resources, but since a "Management Plan" that conflicts with conservation objectives could be executed, For most (almost all) protected area planners, the immediate reaction to the PNJBPR situation is to think of the expulsion, relocation, resettlement, purchase, replacement of use and / or expropriation, any of the assigned facts or names, The history of the management of APs, show us that in the long run they have been more counterproductive than effective.
Under the above circumstances, the option that can make the PNJBPR biologically, ecologically, economically, socially, and environmentally viable, is the development of a process of "territorial ordering", in order to stabilize and mitigate negative actions on the ecosystems of the PNJBPR.
2.3 What use for the development and implementation of the Management Plan is the development of an ECUT?
In three concrete actions, the elaboration of the ECUT will be useful in the elaboration and implementation of the PNJBPR Management Plan.
- Basic information for the development of community and individual Land Use Plans (PLUT), Generation of territorial information, specifically in areas dedicated to agricultural production, for the development of models of "Good Agricultural Practices", The generation of the "map land use conflict ”by having the“ updated map of land use and coverage ”.
As previously indicated, the ECUT by itself will not provide all the necessary information, but it will be the foundation to establish the main biophysical characteristics of the earth and its capacity to use it, providing the information that can contribute ideas for the generation of socio-productive projects that promote the best use of land for the conservation of the natural resources of the PNJBPR.
Figure 2: Diagram of studies necessary for the specific zoning of the PNJBR
3. Methodological Summary
Land Use Capacity is the determination, in physical terms, of the support that a land unit has to be used for certain uses or covers and / or treatments. It is generally based on the principle of maximum intensity of bearable use without causing physical deterioration of the soil. Determined through a classification of use capacity, which is basically the grouping of interpretations that are made mainly for production and conservation purposes and begins with the distinction of mapping units. It allows some generalizations to be made regarding the potentialities of the soil, limitations of use and management problems. (See annex 1, extended methodology).
It refers only to a maximum level of application of the soil resource, without it deteriorating, with a rate greater than the rate of its formation. In this context, soil deterioration refers to human use. Includes geology, physiography, soils, climate, vegetation.
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