The Dominican Republic Becomes the 17th Country to Receive BES Solution Fund Support
The Dominican Republic is a small island state with highly diverse topography, ranging from 40 metres below sea level in the Enriquillo Depression to about 3,187 metres above sea level at Pico Duarte.
It encompasses mountain ranges and highlands, large alluvial and former lake valleys, coastal plains and karst and limestone formations. This geographic isolation, together with the way species have dispersed across the varied landscape, contributes to the island’s rich biodiversity and its high number of endemic species.
This rich biodiversity is threatened by factors that reinforce one another, including land-use change, overexploitation of species and natural resources, pollution and invasive alien species. The country is also regularly exposed to hurricanes, storms, floods and droughts, which raise climate-related risks to both biodiversity and the livelihoods and well-being of communities.
Photo by Christopher Urena on Pexels
Photo by Christopher Urena on Pexels
The Dominican Republic undertook its first-ever national ecosystem assessment with the aim of developing a comprehensive, integrated tool that consolidates fragmented environmental information, including scientific, local and traditional knowledge, into a decision-support resource for policymakers to inform evidence-based planning and action on the ground for sustainable development.
Following the finalization and launch of the assessment in June 2026, the United Nations Development Programme in the Dominican Republic, together with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, prioritized key findings and recommendations from the assessment and translated them into actions for uptake, to be supported by the BES-Net catalytic seed fund known as the BES Solution Fund. The key actions envisaged include:
Strengthening the national biodiversity platform
Operationalizing the Dominican Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Platform (PDBES) as the national mechanism for biodiversity dialogue and coordination; developing a roadmap to guide its implementation and operation; preparing a sustainability and financing plan for the PDBES, drawing on recommendations from the BIOFIN biodiversity finance assessment; convening regular meetings of the PDBES and its thematic working groups to promote collaboration among government, academia, civil society, local communities and the private sector; and facilitating national, regional and municipal dialogue processes to support the use of assessment findings in biodiversity planning and decision-making.
Promoting the uptake of assessment findings and other biodiversity knowledge generated
Developing and implementing a stakeholder engagement plan to encourage the use of scientific evidence and local and traditional knowledge in policy and planning processes; producing and disseminating infographics, technical briefs and communication materials highlighting key findings from the assessment; strengthening biodiversity knowledge management by connecting existing databases and information repositories and establishing information-sharing agreements among institutions; organizing knowledge-exchange events and capacity-building activities for decision makers and stakeholders; and documenting, consolidating and promoting local and traditional knowledge on sustainable ecosystem management to support biodiversity governance.
Supporting biodiversity planning and management
Updating key national biodiversity instruments, including the National Invasive Alien Species Strategy, the National Ecological Restoration Guidelines and the National Sea Turtle Conservation Strategy; developing technical guidance for integrating biodiversity considerations into priority economic sectors such as tourism, agriculture and fisheries; and reviewing, publishing and promoting monitoring protocols for priority species.
Generating strategic biodiversity information
Conducting biodiversity baseline assessments in four priority protected areas where critical information gaps exist; generating technical inputs to update the national ecosystem map using the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology; carrying out pilot ecosystem collapse risk assessments for priority ecosystems, including mangroves, dry forests and other strategic ecosystems; and producing evidence and lessons learned to strengthen ecosystem monitoring, restoration and conservation planning.
Photo by Jesse van Vliet on Unsplash
Photo by Jesse van Vliet on Unsplash
Through the initiative, these interventions are expected to contribute to stronger biodiversity governance, better knowledge uptake, improved planning tools and the critical information needed to conserve the unique terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems of the Dominican Republic.
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