For many years people have urged blending economic and environmental policies. One concept heavily pushed recently have been so-called "compensation for environmental services" (PSA is its Spanish acronym), whereby economic actors are essentially paid to undertake an environmentally-beneficial activity instead of a potentially damaging economic activity they might have otherwise chosen, with ultimate benefits accruing to us all. The type of project most pushed is sustainable management and replanting of forests in key watersheds instead of clearing the land for agriculture or rearing livestock, the idea being to not only help forests, but also the health of the rivers and other watersheds that provide water for drinking, irrigation and power generation. [PSA projects I know in other Latin American countries sometimes go further, actually paying for sustainable agricultural projects in harmony with forest conservation and/or planting certain beneficial grasses along riverbeds, but the DR does not seem to be at that stage yet.]
The DR is currently developing four such projects, the first one involving the Yaque del Norte River --
which sorely needs it. Read all about it at:
"The Environmental Services Payment Concept Comes to the DR"