SANTO DOMINGO.- The Santo Domingo State University (UASD) denounced Wednesday that a group of merchants, lawmakers and military officers seek to steal more than 100 tareas (5.3 hectares) within the Bahia de Luperón Protected Area, and ask authorities to halt the land-grabbing action.

The UASD Environmental Commission and the Dominican Science Academy’s environmental team ask the Environment Prosecutor, the Supreme Court , the Environment Ministry and other agencies to halt the occupation of those lands, which they affirm have been fenced off with barbed wires for the third time, and denying citizens access to the Protected Area.

“The area they seek to steal includes zones of high historical value, such as the expeditionary groups’ landing near Bahia Luperón, including the site where the monument to honor the heroes of June, 1949 was recently erected.”

They affirm that Bahia de Luperón is environmentally fragile, with an enormous tourism potential for all Dominican and foreign visitors, protected under laws 202, and 64-00.

“Luperón’s mangrove swamps, threatened by this illegal appropriation, are a highly fragile ecosystem whose dynamic function  stabilizes and processes what occurs in the region, including the biological context where they inhabit very important manatee populations in danger of extinction, with extensive feeding areas, a proliferation and refuge for many fish species of commercial and ecological importance,” they said.