A new book about Miguel Francisco Canela Lázaro, a Dominican doctor, surveyor and mountaineer who as early as the 1920s warned that destroying the country's forests would destroy its water supply, is reviving interest in one of the Dominican Republic's earliest conservationists. Canela Lázaro was born in 1894 in Santiago de los Caballeros, the Dominican Republic's second-largest city, in the Cibao region.
The tribute to his life and work, written by Luis González Fabra, was published in the Ágora opinion section of the Dominican newspaper Diario Libre on September 14, 2026.
González Fabra describes Canela Lázaro as the guardian who gave the forest a voice. He was, according to the essay, one of the few Dominicans of his era who understood that a forest is not simply scenery, but a factory of water, a protector of soils, a refuge for biodiversity and a guarantee of survival for the communities that depend on it.
Canela Lázaro placed particular importance on the Cordillera Central, the mountain range that runs through the centre of the island of Hispaniola and is home to Pico Duarte, the highest peak in the Caribbean. According to the essay, he understood that every stretch of forest destroyed, every river damaged by erosion and every species that quietly disappeared represented a threat to life.
Warning over the Yaque del Norte
In 1924, Canela Lázaro and Juan Bautista Pérez Rancier warned of the grave danger threatening the headwaters of the Yaque del Norte, the country's longest river, and proposed protecting the area by acquiring and marking out the surrounding land, the essay says.
They continued their exploration and conservation work in 1926, leading to the delimitation of an area known as the Vedado del Yaque. That designation became the forerunner of the Parque Nacional Armando Bermúdez, a national park in the Cordillera Central that today protects the upper watershed of the Yaque del Norte.
A newly published biography
The renewed attention to Canela Lázaro's work comes from a book by Luis A. Jiménez, a member of the Canela family who holds postgraduate degrees in social sciences from Texas A&M University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His book, titled "Canela Lázaro, genio desconocido" ("Canela Lázaro, an unknown genius"), is described as a work of research as well as affection and recognition.
Jiménez, who also has a passion for mountains, knew Canela Lázaro within the family circle, according to the essay. The book's prologue describes Canela Lázaro's extraordinary capacity to persevere, with gentleness and personal selflessness, in what became essentially his life's mission: loving nature as he loved himself.
From Paris to the Dominican peaks
Canela Lázaro's intellectual curiosity led him to anatomical research in France and to scientific exploration of the highest mountains in the Dominican Republic, the essay says. He was also noted for his courage, refusing to be intimidated by those who used their power to plunder forests and rivers.
González Fabra argues that Canela Lázaro and his contemporaries understood, more than a century ago, the inseparable relationship between trees, mountains, water and human survival, at a time when environmental conservation was far from the global priority it has since become.
A message for today
González Fabra writes that, a hundred years later, the Dominican Republic still faces forest fires, illegal logging, unregulated mountain agriculture and economic pressure on its protected areas. He argues that the country continues to learn, sometimes too late, an elementary truth: when the forest disappears, water begins to disappear with it.
Remembering Canela Lázaro, he writes, is not only an act of historical justice but also a warning. He notes that men who are ahead of their time are often poorly understood while they live and poorly remembered after they die, but that truly great ideas outlive those who proclaimed them.
Canela Lázaro left behind an idea that González Fabra says remains as valid as ever: that protecting the forest is protecting water, and protecting water is protecting life. The essay closes by suggesting that, a century on, it may be time to listen to the man who chose to give the forest a voice.
