Thanks for expanding the forum of the competition. The questions and suggestions that are being raised are inviting even more detail about our project. Yes, we have Dominican share holders and we are open to more. Our Dominican general manager, Elvin Mejia, is now a 2% owner of the company and project. His dedication has been amazing over the past three years. Also the gentleman from whom we are purchasing most of the land is a 1% owner in the company. As we grow, the plan is for more stock ownership for workers in the project from the DR and abroad. We have plans for home ownership for employees when that stage of the project is further along. We are open to involving others at all levels. We hope that as our visibility increases, we will be attracting more investors in the project locally and internationally. The goal is creating a network of interested, involved and invested folk from around the world. That success can then be replicated in the DR, in Haiti, and in other developing countries. Another related concept is that we are working with eco NGOs, individuals, the DR government and other companies throughout the DR to create a Geotourism Network. We are located only an hour’s drive from 50 major hotels. We hope people will plan a day trip to our location when they come to the DR, they can ask their tour operator for details, but we hope that they won’t stop at just one visit to us. From here we can direct interested tourists to associated locations around the DR and even into Haiti. Visitors can camp now at our location for as long as they like, and/or use El Fuego del Sol as the basecamp for work-trips in our area, or geotourism trips around the island. There are many ways that we are sharing the benefits of geotourism with local Dominicans, and we are always open to incorporating more ideas.

Thanks again,

Kevin

Dear René

I appreciate your question and understand your concern. This issue cuts to the very nature of what is Geotoursim. For hundreds of years people have worked to improve conditions in developing countries through social outreach to those countries. Of course history is also full of people who have visited other countries and met other peoples to conquer the country and destroy the local culture. The native peoples of the DR in the 1400’s were the Caribe and Taino peoples. They warred with each other, but the violence was slight compared to the European conquest of the country following the first visits of Christopher Columbus. The current residents of the DR can trace their heritage back primarily to Spain with some inter-marriage with the previous residents who managed to avoid the wide-scale annihilation which occurred.
Today, however, the DR is celebrated as one of the most successful democracies of developing-countries in the Americas. The question then turns to what do Dominicans want for their future. Of course every individual has a different answer in a democracy. That’s the beauty of intellectual freedom. However, the majority of Dominicans have made it clear that they encourage international investment. Laws have been passed in the national government that encourage international investment in the business and specifically the land of the country. The DR offers clear verifiable true title ownership with no restrictions on internationals. Many locations allow internationals to own their house but not the property under it. The DR once had such a law, but changed it specifically to encourage more international home and business owners to make the DR their home.
The next question is, with the ability to own land in the DR, what should benevolent international visitors do? There are some that argue that all international travel should be stopped because of the fuel that is wasted and the environmental damage of the flight itself. I believe that if you are going to travel, you should work to make your trip worth the fuel and CO2 used to get there. And again, I turn back to what the Dominicans, both individually (personally) and nationally (officially) say they want. They want better jobs. They want more opportunities. They want to meet more people from around the world. They want to participate in international markets and commerce. They want the fulfillment of reasonable pay for a dedicated day’s work. And, yes, they want a fair price for their land, so they can turn that asset into hard currency to improve the standard of living of their family. It is in the spirit of sustainable benefit that we created our project.
The property of our development is under purchase contract from specific local landowners that are clearly listed on their titles. They have chosen to offer their land for sale. They have selected our project among other offers because they have said that they also share our goal of bringing improvements to the country’s social and ecological environment while we provide sustainable economic benefit.
While I applaud the sentiment of “giving the land back to the natives,” the logistics of finding the descendants of the Tainos and only letting them have land does not seem like a reasonable plan for assistance to the people who now live here and can benefit from responsible international connection.
We are offering parcels of land for others (Dominicans and internationals) to purchase (and then hold clear title to) because we want to create an integrated exemplary community featuring top technologies in sustainable building, renewable energy, and Geotourism. The Dominican government has passed laws within just the past two years that encourage all three of those varieties of developmental efforts, most recently 57-07 encouraging renewable energy.
We are working to attract a community of interested folks from here in the DR and internationally to gather in the beautiful landscape to address the real problems here of poverty, waste, energy, etc.
Dominican people directly benefit from our programming in many ways: jobs, donations, cultural exchange, opportunities, exemplary environmental stewardship, to name just a few. And, yes, these are our specific actions and plans to share our profits with our fellow residents of the island. We welcome others as we are welcomed.

Thanks again,

Kevin Adair

I discussed the Eco-Friendly components portion of your post in the entry above.

Excellent comments. Please send us an email to talk about how we could incorporate your ideas in the project. kevadair@aol.com