Dominican specialists visit Spain to learn about the functioning of its emergency telecommunications systems and its controlled burning plans.

7 March 2023. Madrid, Spain. Officials from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of the Dominican Republic (MIMARENA) and the Emergency Operations Centre are visiting Spain during the month of March to learn how the Ministry of the Interior's emergency telecommunications systems and the controlled burning plans and the Integrated Forest Fire Prevention Teams (EPRIF) of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) work. These knowledge exchanges and training visits are part of the European Union's Euroclima programme, which aims to combat climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean, and seeks to improve the Dominican Republic's fire prevention and extinguishing capabilities.

From 6 to 10 March, staff from the Department of Emergency Attention and Environmental Damage of the Dominican Emergency Operations Centre are receiving theoretical and practical training and exchanging experiences with officials and commanders from the Directorate General of Civil Protection, Ministry of the Interior of Spain.

The work programme for this visit includes training in the operation of AML systems which allows Civil Protection to accurately geolocate calls made from a mobile phone and ESAlert which allows Civil Protection to send generalised and immediate alert messages to mobile phones located in an area affected by an emergency or catastrophe, as well as visits to the National School of Civil Protection as a public reference centre for Civil Protection training and to the Emergency Centre 112 of the Community of Madrid.

This exchange of experiences seeks to improve the capacities of the Department of Attention to Emergencies and Environmental Damage to coordinate and develop programmes and actions for the prevention and mitigation of environmental emergencies, especially those related to forest fires.

In addition, from 21 to 29 March, another group of personnel from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of the Dominican Republic (MIMARENA) will visit Spain to learn about the functioning of the forest fire prevention and extinction system for which the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) is responsible in support of the autonomous communities of Spain; specifically: the controlled burning protocols.

During this visit, they will learn about the functioning of the Forest Fire Defence Area (ADCIF) and will spend time with two of the twenty-eight Integrated Forest Fire Prevention Teams (EPRIF) and the recently created Forest Fire Prevention and Analysis Teams (EPAIF) that MITECO has distributed throughout the national territory.

Thus, in the first activity, the Dominican personnel will receive information on issues such as decision-making on the locations of resources, their organisation and the coordination mechanisms between them and with the autonomous communities. They will also learn about the evolution of the lines of work developed in the ADCIF, the results obtained, and the improvements implemented in the development of fire prevention and extinguishing tasks over the last 25 years.

This more general and theoretical training will be complemented with visits to the provinces of Cantabria (EPRIF of the Pas region) and León (EPRIF of Tabuyo del Monte), where they will see in situ how these teams organise, define, plan and execute controlled burns, in coordination with the Autonomous Community, as another forest fire prevention tool; and therefore, the Dominican officials will participate in the planning, implementation and evaluation of controlled burns and in training activities for livestock farmers on burning techniques.

"Fire prevention and suppression is a key element in the fight against climate change, not only to prevent and reduce the loss of biological richness that fires cause, but also to prevent and reduce the large amount of greenhouse gas emissions they produce," explains Elsa Velasco, coordinator of the Euroclima programme at the International and Ibero-America Foundation for Administration and Public Policy (FIIAPP/Spanish Cooperation), an agency of the Spanish international cooperation system that is one of the seven organisations in charge of implementing the European Union's Euroclima+ programme.

The contribution to improving the forest fire prevention and extinction capacities of the Dominican Republic is only one of the aspects of the action plan for cooperation in the fight against climate change agreed between the Dominican Republic and the Euroclima programme, which also includes actions in the area of promoting sustainable urban mobility.

 

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For more information:

Juan Ignacio Cortés (Euroclima+/FIIAPP)

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About Euroclima 

EUROCLIMA+ is a programme funded by the European Union and co-financed by the German federal government through the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), as well as by the governments of France and Spain through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation. 

The Programme's mission is to reduce the impact of climate change and its effects on 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, promoting mitigation, adaptation, resilience and climate investment and biodiversity. It is implemented according to the "Spirit of Team Europe" under the synergistic work of seven agencies: the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), the French Development Agency (AFD), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Expertise France (EF), the International and Ibero-America Foundation for Administration and Public Policy (FIIAPP), the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) GmbH, and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). 

About FIIAPP

FIIAPP supports the building of public systems in more than 120 countries. We do this by promoting public talent and knowledge exchange between peer institutions in different countries. As a public foundation, our work is part of Spanish and European outreach. We are committed to the value of the public sector to improve the lives of people and the planet.