PEDERNALES, Dominican Republic.- The otherwise best-kept secret of the Dominican Republic yearns to become a household word, as its 89 kilometers of beaches with barely 200 basic hotel rooms makes the Pedernales peninsula a most attractive region for investors seeking future potential and for adventurers after the unspoiled.

“No high-density tourism for us,” says the ex senator Antonio Feliz Perez (Toño), who as president of the Provincial Tourism Promotion and Development Association has a vested interest in making sure this jewel in the Dominican southwest doesn’t go the way of the country’s north and east coasts, where the ‘all-inclusive’ reigns.

But the obstacles are many, distance for one. The town and provincial seat Pedernales is 119 kilometers of winding, desolate and often treacherous road away from the nearest airport at Barahona, Maria Montez International. If that doesn’t scare potential developers away there’s the ominous presence of the Haitian border and that country’s decades of turmoil.

Yet for those with a pioneering flare the sparsely populated corner of the country won’t wait much longer, as Feliz notes that (Donald) “Trump, the French already have models” of developments presumably awaiting approval and/or joint ventures. “There is a fear of competition from the East, from Puerto Plata; no one lends money to build them, the government is pressured not to issue the permits.”

The exception would have to be the incomparable Bahia de las Aguilas. Mired in scandal for over a decade, would-be land robbers sought to claim this over 15 kilometer long strip of virgin beach by posing as farmers after the lands were declared agrarian reform in the early 1990s despite its almost desert-like vegetation and rocky soil.

Ecotourism, ecotourism

Repeating it won’t make it happen but many of the residents here feel that if the rules prohibit construction of massive hotels then let the alternative in. “Bahia de las Aguilas is not in the Jaragua National Park,” Feliz notes, but acknowledges that its protected category allow only eco-friendly structures.

The former lawmaker takes pride listing the region's attractions for visitors. “We can sell a destination of two countries; low humidity and the least rainfall; various microclimates and the spectacular depression Hoyo de Pelempito,” and the dizzying heights of the Sierra de Baoruco mountains that envelop it.

In fact the entire extreme southwest region has been declared a biosphere patrimony of the world, precisely for its unrivaled diversity which includes the 40 meter below sea level Lago Enriquillo, the Oviedo Lagoon, and the Beata and Alto Velo islands, all within an area less than 10,000 kilometers square.

Developers, ecologists work together

The situation of Pedernales has created an unusual bond between those who seek to develop it for tourism and ecologists who vow to protect Mother Nature. Take Ignacio Rodriguez Feliz, who despite his family relations with Toño makes it clear their agendas differ. He said his five years crisscrossing the Baoruco wilderness has convinced him of its value for tourism. “When people come here and see what I’ve seen they’ll be convinced it needs protecting.”

And he’s seen plenty. As contractor with the Hispaniola Ornithological Society Rodriguez can describe the habits of the island’s only two native mammals -the Jutia and Solenodonte- as rare as they are reclusive. “They depend on the forests, if they are cut down they are gone.”

For Feliz Perez and Rodriguez time is on their side. After all, waiting no matter how long isn’t a bother if you’re in paradise.