SANTO DOMINGO.- Environment minister Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal yesterday warned that no one that acquires lands in the National Park of the East will be able to enter the zone to take possession of them.

The official said the titles of property that can be obtained by those benefited with land registry pertaining to the protected area can be legal, but will lack legitimacy.

Fernandez said the National Park of the East is a national patrimony, "that no multimillionaire, millionaire, serious person, trafficker, bum, nobody can acquire any land, because it’ll never have legitimacy."

The ex vice president said the Environment Ministry will not regard documents that lack legitimacy as valid in the zone. “We’ll never allow their occupation; we’ll never give them legitimacy. They’ll be able to have it ‘quote’ legally, with all the rights, but legitimately they’ll not have because we’ll never permit it."

Fernandez said the Environment Ministry assumes the commitment to preserve the Park of the East as a protected area and stressed that the permits for any action outside the General Environment Law’s mandates will not be issued.

He warned those who seek to establish ownership in the zone that he’ll not allow the alienation of a single meter of land in the natural reserve. “Neither to the great millionaires, nor to the fathers of families, nobody,” Fernandez said, and affirmed that the authorities safeguard everything in the National Park of the East.

One of the alleged buyers of the 3.4 million square meters of lands valued at US$19.9 million is the Spaniard Carlos Sánchez, indicted in his country on money laundering charges.

SOURCE: diariolibre.com