SANTO DOMINGO.- The crops ready for harvest as well the people who occupy the nucleus of the Los Haitises National Park will be evicted in the coming hours, said Environment minister Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal, and also warned farmers that it won’t allow the setting of fires to plant in the damping zone, declared national security.

The decision was reiterated after a meeting of the Presidential Commission created to solve the problem that has dragged on for 16 years in that protected area.

Fernandez Mirabal said he’ll enforce the cartographic limits established for the zone, spanning an area from the towns Cevicos to Hato Mayor. He warned farmers that if they don’t want to lose their crops they should harvest at once, because they’ll evict everything at any time and that there won’t be any more extensions.

The official said he’ll enforce the law without forgetting the human part, preventing mistreatment and will look for technological alternatives to guarantee the farmers’ survival.

In the meeting, in which Dominican Agrarian Institute director Frank Rodriguez, legislators, governors and farmers’ representatives took part, it was reported that there’s a lack funds and that squatters have returned to the zone, as well as the hiring of thousands of Haitians to work on plots planted in the protected area.