97.5 per cent of the population had at least basic drinking water in 2024. Only 45.3 per cent had safely managed drinking water, meaning available when needed, on the premises and free from contamination. That figure has barely moved in five years.

The quality record backs it up. Only 73.6 per cent of drinking water samples showed satisfactory quality against a national standard of 95 per cent, and the proportion of samples containing coliforms in aqueducts served by INAPA rose from 17 per cent in 1994 to 23 per cent in 1998, against a standard under which more than 5 per cent means the water is no longer potable. Non revenue water has been estimated above 65 per cent.

Bring a filter bottle and refill from the dispensers rather than working through cases of single use plastic. That is the biggest single plastic saving you can make here.

On the Ministry of Agriculture's own accounting, 2024 production gave 90 per cent self sufficiency against estimated consumption, so only around a tenth of food is imported by volume. Rice self sufficiency is 106 per cent. The President has put the figure at 90.6 per cent, up from 88.5 per cent in 2019. Both halves belong in the picture though: food imports still rose 16.7 per cent year on year in 2024, and corn self sufficiency is only 6 per cent.

The organic record is the headline. The FAO's World Banana Forum states the Dominican Republic is the world's largest producer of organic bananas, accounting for more than 55 per cent of global organic banana production, with around 12,000 hectares, over 1,000 growers, and roughly 95 per cent of its organic banana exports going to the EU, supplying nearly half the EU organic banana market. Peer reviewed work also names it the foremost exporter of organic bananas and cocoa. Those citations are anchored on 2015 and 2008 data, so read them as long established rather than current year.

INESPRE, the price stabilisation institute under the Ministry of Agriculture, buys directly from producers and runs producer markets, mobile shops and fairs so farmers sell their harvest straight to the customer without intermediaries. The network has been extended across Santo Domingo, Santiago, San Cristóbal and other municipalities.

Do not mistake Mercado Modelo in the Colonial Zone for a farmers market. It is the capital's largest craft market, built in 1941 and inaugurated in 1943, and inside the building it is mostly gift shops aimed at tourists, with fruit and vegetable stands around the outside and along the streets.

The Dominican Republic is the world's largest producer of organic bananas, accounting for more than 55 per cent of global organic banana production, with around 12,000 hectares and over 1,000 growers, and roughly 95 per cent of its organic banana exports go to the EU, supplying nearly half that market.

Peer reviewed work also names it the foremost exporter of organic bananas and cocoa. CONACADO, a farmer membership confederation of roughly 10,000 smallholders on farms averaging 4.3 hectares, has been Fairtrade certified since 2009 and accounts for around a quarter of the country's organic cocoa. CHOCAL at Altamira is thirty local women working organic cacao bought from surrounding smallholders.

One caveat we will not hide: the FAO banana figure is anchored on 2015 and the peer reviewed cocoa claim on 2008, so read them as long established rather than current year.

Forest cover is 45 per cent and rising.

The question is whether any of it is working, and the honest answer is that mostly nobody has checked. 56.2 per cent of terrestrial protected areas have completed management effectiveness assessments. For marine protected areas the figure is 3 per cent. On top of that, 40.1 per cent of sites have no reported governance type at all. Three of the country's 34 Key Biodiversity Areas have no protected coverage.

Los Haitises National Park matters most: it holds the only known surviving non reintroduced population of the Critically Endangered Ridgway's hawk.

The Hispaniolan solenodon is a shrew like mammal found only on Hispaniola and one of the very few venomous mammals in the world. The Hispaniolan hutia, a rodent, is also island endemic and is pushed hard by habitat loss and by introduced mongooses and rats. The palmchat is a Hispaniola endemic and the national bird, known for its huge communal nests in palms.

Ridgway's hawk is Critically Endangered and endemic to Hispaniola, with the only known surviving non reintroduced population in and around Los Haitises, plus a relict population on the Samaná Peninsula.

In Spanish the Dominican Republic turns out to have the deepest material vocabulary in the Caribbean, and the clearest story anywhere of plastic replacing it.

The higüero is the calabash gourd, and the vessel changes name with its job: a morro to drink from, a higüera or jigüera to eat from and to wash rice in, a calabazo to carry water. Cut in half it winnowed rice and pigeon peas and washed the cutlery. That was ordinary kitchen equipment until roughly the 1950s, when plastic goods arriving from the United States ended it. Guano palm basketry went the same way from the 1980s: macutos, árganas and palm brooms displaced by plastic versions.

It is still being made, by people you can name. Rufina and Martina González Ramos carve and etch higüero at Las Aromas in Hermanas Mirabal, working with eight of Rufina's children and her husband. Alberto Ramos works higüero at Canca la Piedra in Tamboril into trays, cups, glasses, spoons and lamps he describes as fit for restaurant use. At Las Tablas in Baní, Manuel de Jesús Lara, past a hundred, his wife Providencia and his daughter Santa, who leads a workshop of 17 women, weave guano and cane into macutos, brooms and cana hats, backed since 2015 by the Tejiendo Futuro programme that pairs veteran weavers with young people. In Moca, brothers Nelson and Marino Brito have worked coconut shell at ARTECO for over thirty years and hold a UNESCO Seal of Excellence. At Yamasá, Ramón and Jesús Guillén hand build clay fired in a wood kiln and sealed with beeswax, and welcome visitors to the workshop.

So the swaps are real: eat from a higüero, drink from a morro, carry a macuto, use a coconut jícara and a guayacán wooden spoon, and eat pastel en hoja, which comes wrapped in plantain or bijao leaf rather than foam.

The catch is the point of sale. Only around 30 per cent of the craft sold in the country is made by Dominican hands, and over 70 per cent of artisans work informally. Mercado Modelo openly mixes imported stock with Dominican pieces. Go to the Ruta de los Artesanos at El Higüerito in Moca, or to a named workshop, rather than to a souvenir stall.

Law 225-20 prohibited the free distribution of single use plastic bags and the use of expanded polystyrene, but carried a five year grace period that only expired on 2 October 2025. Eight days after the deadline, businesses across the country were still handing out plastic bags free. Law 98-25, enacted on 16 December 2025, then replaced the cliff edge with a phased ban starting in 2026, giving businesses twelve months to eliminate single use plastics and foam and a further twelve for food containers and trays, on the grounds that affordable alternatives are lacking.

Waste is worse. The country produces more than 7 million tonnes of solid waste a year of which only 7 per cent is recycled, at 650 kg per person, with 240 open dumps. Duquesa, the largest open air landfill in the country and among the largest in Latin America, takes around 3,000 tonnes a day from Greater Santo Domingo, is not sanitised, and threatens the Isabela and Ozama river basins. A fire there in 2020 burned for six days and smothered the capital in smoke, and officials stated it was not accidental. Closure was slated to begin in early 2026.

The country produces more than 7 million tonnes of solid waste a year of which only 7 per cent is recycled, at 650 kg per person, with 240 open dumps.

Duquesa, the largest open air landfill in the country and among the largest in Latin America, takes around 3,000 tonnes a day from Greater Santo Domingo. It is not sanitised and it threatens the Isabela and Ozama river basins. A fire there in 2020 burned for six days and smothered the capital in smoke, and officials stated it was not accidental. Closure was slated to begin in early 2026.

A UN human rights expert publicly called on the country in May 2025 to seize the momentum to structurally improve waste management.

UNESCO proclaimed it a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001 and inscribed it on the Representative List in 2008. It was founded in the sixteenth century by enslaved Africans and mestizos, is open to all, and its musicians play drums called congos with their hands. At Pentecost the Cofradía holds prayers, dances and songs with a procession carrying the image of a dove. It is a community practice tied to a place and a date, not a staged product, and Dominican press has reported it fighting not to disappear.

Taíno ancestry survives in the modern Dominican population, contrary to the story of complete extinction, with maternal lineage studies finding it prominent in the former Spanish colonies. There is no organised Taíno territory or council comparable to Dominica's Kalinago Territory, so treat this as ancestral heritage rather than a living self governing community.

On cocoa, CONACADO is a farmer membership confederation of roughly 10,000 smallholders in a few hundred base associations, founded in 1985 and Fairtrade certified since 2009, whose exports account for around a quarter of the country's organic cocoa. Average farm size is about 4.3 hectares.