Ealier this week, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) held the third edition of Orange Conversations, with a meeting in which they presented nature-based solutions from both countries for the management of watersheds, rivers, coasts and riverside urban areas.
During the event, the Vice Minister of Climate Change and Sustainability, Ana Emilia Pimentel, highlighted the Dominican Republic's vulnerability to climate change and the need to strengthen the resilience of watersheds, coasts, and communities. She also emphasized the importance of incorporating integrated approaches and considering the full life cycle of interventions, as well as community participation and inter-institutional coordination.
In her opening address, Flora Wiedijk, Minister-Counselor of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, explained that traditionally, a significant part of the Dutch water infrastructure was based on controlling and protecting against water. Over time, she said, the Netherlands has learned to work with nature, to give water space, and to use natural processes as part of the solutions.
“The Dominican Republic and the Netherlands share something fundamental: we are countries connected by water. This reality has led us to develop knowledge and solutions that we now want to share with Dominican experience and needs,” Wiedijk said.
The meeting also brought together representatives from the Government, the tourism sector, multilateral banks, academic institutions and engineering companies from the Netherlands.
Representatives from the Dutch consortium EcoShape and the companies Haskoning, Witteveen+Bos, Fugro, Van Oord and Dutch Dredging presented projects developed in that country for coastal protection, mangrove restoration, environmental monitoring, dredging and sediment management.
The event concluded with a commitment from the participants to establish a technical working group with the participation of the public, private, academic and financial sectors to coordinate climate change adaptation projects in the Dominican Republic.