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Tourism: Tourism pressures are increasing rapidly and
already the buffer zone is markedly affected. Recently, the
number of ‘excursion packages to the Park has gone up in
a spectacular manner’ which, with other tourist
developments, ‘supposes new risks for the integrity of the
Park.’
However restraining mechanisms are being put in place
including the use of the trails through the Park only with
approved guides and closing the two major rock art caves
to the general public.
Decline of traditional subsistence: The biggest mediumterm
threat is that the traditional means of subsistence of
the small population in the Park – fishing and vegetable
cultivation – has declined as ‘all fishermen have become
tour boat captains or employees of hotels.’
Poverty: Poverty leads local people to use the Park as a
resource for their own subsistence, resulting in
deforestation and faunal and floral degradation (from
charcoal-burning, firewood collection, vegetable
cultivation, cattle-grazing, animal/bird hunting for meat
sale as pets, and forest fire starting from campfires).
Archaeological looting is similarly carried out.
Natural disasters: These include hurricanes (the latest, in
1998, was literally disastrous) and wild fires (against
which there is virtually no preparedness).
Authenticity and integrity
The nomination dossier provides no information or
justification specifically on authenticity; though some of its
material under ‘integrity’ indicates clearly that the qualities
of authenticity, well-illustrated otherwise in photographs,
are high. In monumental and historical terms, for example,
the Park’s resource ‘has remained practically intact since
its artisans abandoned the cultural values it treasures in the
first decade of the 16 th century.’ There has been no
subsequent use of the structures, or settlement in the area,
so the archaeological remains and deposits are not only
intact but also virtually undisturbed under tropical forest
cover. There is therefore a huge research potential lockedup
in the area, for example in the layers and contents of
former village sites and cemeteries.
In present perception, the rock art appears outstanding.
Some of its motifs also appear on ceramics, indicating the
art’s place in a cultural context and not just as an isolated
phenomenon. More effective presentation of existing rock
art research supporting some of the hypotheses about it
would strengthen the case for its outstanding universal
value. The nomination includes a large bibliography but
too much of the recent research is unpublished to subject it
to critical, external review.
Comparative evaluation
There is no mention of the Caribbean, let alone Hispaniola,
in Jean Clottes, L’Art Rupestre. Une etude thématique et
critères d’évaluation (Occasional Papers for the World
Heritage Convention, ICOMOS, ed. July 2002). The
nearest sites mentioned are 3 in Mexico (one, Baja
California, on the List, two of them Olmec, 1 st millennium
BC), 1 in Guatemala (Maya), and 1 in Texas, USA (Lower
Pecos River).
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The rock art in this nomination has to look far in space and
time for comparanda at the level of quantity and quality to
which it aspires. The nomination claims in fact that, in
terms of rock art, there are no caves like Jose Maria cave in
America, ‘the only known cave sanctuary in the world that
contains such a large collection of paintings in a single
cavern with one entrance.’ The same cave contains more
paintings than Lascaux, France, and Altamira, Spain (both
Listed), though the comparison is worthless without
acknowledging that the two are some 20,000 years earlier
than Jose Maria cave. The quality of the paintings in Jose
Maria is, it is claimed, comparable to that of listed caves in
Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Artistically, the rock art in
the Park finds its cultural context in similar work in
northern South America and the Caribbean islands rather
than further north.
The archaeological structures interpreted as ball courts are
comparable to similar examples at two sites in Puerto Rico
but the Aleta set in the Park is uniquely well-preserved,
‘intact since it was abandoned during the first years of the
sixteenth century.’ Similarly, the Aleta sinkhole is
culturally significant as a ritual deposit of Taino cultural
objects: other such holes are known in Taino archaeology
but the size and contents at Aleta make it outstanding. The
stool, or duho, can be compared with another one, found in
Hispaniola and dated to the 14 th century, now in the
Louvre, Paris. The remarkable extent and nature of the
objects, their state of preservation, and the intriguing
physical features of the well distinguish La Aleta from
numerous sinkholes containing archaeological deposits
associated with the Taino culture. Its only comparator is
the deposit at Chichen Itza, Yucatan.
Outstanding universal value
General statement:
Parque del Este, Dominican Republic, is of outstanding
universal value for three prime reasons:
•= It contains a virtually untouched archaeological
resource relating to one of the world’s regional cultures,
that of the Taino in the Caribbean, which disappeared four
hundred years ago in well-documented circumstances.
•= It contains one of the world’s great portfolios of
rock art, 80-90% in pristine condition, unusually with a
firm terminal date in the early 16 th century CE and with
origins perhaps BCE.
•= The place was witness to one of the first
encounters between European and indigenous people in the
Americas, an event documented as it happened in the three
decades either side of 1500 CE, and represented in the
well-preserved but so far little-explored archaeology of the
Park.
The Parque Nacional del Este is an exceptional testimony
to the Taino cultural tradition, which had established a
stable complex society in the Greater Antilles over four
centuries. The Taino themselves became extinct as an
ethnic group in the early 16th century as a result of
European contact but aspects of their culture survive in
physical traits transmitted through intermarriage,
continuing customs, mythology and traditions, names and
words in the regional language, contemporary handicrafts,
archaeological evidence and historical records.