The Italian Legacy in the Dominican Republic

THE ITALIAN LEGACY IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

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that this would be no easy task; it could not be resolved with a simple prohibition. The country needed the

forest and had enormous reserves that, it was argued, should be exploited for the sake of the development

of the republic (p.357).

The Forestry Section opened with a clear proposal to protect and a potent environmental consciousness.

Ciferri wrote in his report that “countries comprehend the value of their wooded lands only when they have

destroyed them; that is when, at great cost and sacrifice, they initiate a project of reconstruction of what they,

out of ignorance or greed, have destroyed” (p. 10).

The Dominican Republic has the good fortune, perhaps unique in the Caribbean, of possessing a

formidable forest reserve—formidable, but not infinite […]. This wealth has by no means been appre-

ciated, and much less cared for. Furthermore, it constitutes a mass that is almost completely unknown

economically.

Ciferri proposed the protection of “obligatory reserve” zones to be supervised by a specialist technician

from within the Secretariat of Agriculture and Immigration, a “chief of a Forestry Department, who would

be in charge of watching over the national wooded patrimony, in every sense, and particularly that of: 1) de-

limitation of the zones where clearing or leveling the land must be prohibited; 2) active repopulation where

necessary, supported expressly by government order; 3) recognition of the general forested zones and of the

potential for rational commercial exploitation, in reference to lumber and to subsidiary industries (extraction

The great fountain

of the historic rose

garden. Under his

management (1942-

1964) Raffaele

Ciferri faced the

period of post-war

reconstruction, giving

the main façade of

the Botanical Garden

of the University

of Pavia (Sistema

Museale di Ateneo) its

current appearance:

he dismantled the

aquarium-house

built by Briosi and

built a monumental

semicircle staircase

that embraces the

large fountain. (Paolo

Cauzzi)