Francisco Núñez has been invested in supporting clean-water projects for Latin America and the Caribbean for over a decade.
Núñez, from the Dominican Republic, is the Central Caribbean director of The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to conserving water and land. As his home country has been experiencing a major water crisis due to deforestation, overuse of natural resources, and severe storms driven by rising temperatures, Núñez is looking to provide more water security to the region.
"We're going through a severe drought," he told BBC News. "Animals have been dying, crops failing. To build a dam to conserve water supplies is not enough — we need nature to provide water, we need to go back to the ecosystem and rebuild from the beginning."
Núñez's efforts to support his home started in 2011. At the time, he helped start the Latin American Water Funds Partnership, which established 24 water funds across multiple countries in Latin America — two of which are in the Dominican Republic.
These water funds are unique in that they "focus on nature-based solutions contributing to achieve water security for the future," according to Patricia Abreu, who heads the Santo Domingo Water Fund. The funds are looking to restore three river basins, including one in and around Santo Domingo, another in the mountains, and one in the watershed of the Yaque del Norte River.
As these basins increase water security, Núñez and his team have been increasing tree canopies to protect the watersheds. The team works with local farmers willing to plant coffee or cacao crops, as the vegetation supports water retention. To protect these plants and support a healthy water cycle, the Nature Conservancy has been using agroforestry, which is intentionally planting trees or shrubs in farming systems.
While increasing tree canopies has a multitude of benefits in restoring these critical river basins, Núñez ran into one problem: convincing the farmers.
He told BBC News the farmers did not have much trust in programs like the Nature Conservancy or lacked knowledge about the watersheds. He said it took a few months to get some on board, but now, they can't get enough. As of February, not a single farmer had quit the program.
Not only is the project providing key eco-friendly benefits for local communities, but it is helping financially, too. All the farmers involved have not had any added strain on their wallets, as they are compensated for planting the trees and provided with the required seeds and fertilizers.
Since 2011, the project has seen roughly 8,000 acres of water-producing ecosystems restored in the country, providing local communities with clean water for drinking, electricity, and rural and urban agriculture.
Núñez has emphasized that to support these water systems, it must be a collective and local effort. He told The Christian Science Monitor: "There's an understanding now that to fix the water crisis, we need to rebuild the watersheds. This model is about everybody coming together ... to work together with the same goal."
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