SANTO DOMINGO.- The Assembly to Reform the Constitution approved several articles on the environment and natural resources, including the controversial Law on public access to beaches.

The lawmakers based their votes on a special commission report that studied and significantly changed the Executive Branch’s proposal.

The controversial and previous “Law 305 on coast and seas” is ambiguous when it stipulates the “free access to a swath marked from 60 meters from the high tide mark inland,” and largely as unenforceable since the tourism industry spurred the construction of more than one hundred oceanfront hotels which cordon off the beaches.

As to the protected areas the articles state that they could only be reduced by law, with the approval of two thirds of the Senator and Deputies and declare a national interest the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons and that the rivers, lakes, lagoons, beaches and coasts are public domain and are of free access to the public.

The law will regulate the conditions and manner in which individuals may have access to the benefit or management of these areas, among others prerogatives.

Article 56 states that the introduction, development, production, possession, marketing, transport, storage and use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons into the national territory is prohibited, as well as the introduction  of toxic, nuclear, chemical and dangerous residues and waste.

Whereas article 9 states that "the renewable and nonrenewable natural resources in the territory and marine spaces under national jurisdiction, are patrimony of the nation."

Article 10 states that "the upper basins of river and zones of native endemic biodiversity will be object of a special protection by the public powers to guarantee their management and preservation as fundamental asset of the Nation."