The true guidelines that define the proposal to defend the Amazon, promoted by Nicolás Maduro and Gustavo Petro at COP27, will be known over the course of a year in which Venezuela is also expected to commit to expelling the armed groups that operate in the south of the country, especially where the Orinoco Mining Arc is located.
The mitigation of risks through the reactivation of hydrometeorological stations throughout the territory will be key to saving lives in the event of a repeat of the torrential rains that shook the country in 2022.
For Venezuela, 2023 begins with unprecedented government promises. The presence of President Nicolás Maduro at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP27), in Egypt, allowed him to showcase a position never seen before of a staunch defender of an Amazon rainforest that he transgressed himself by placing extractivism above the environment through the decree that created the Orinoco Mining Arc in 2016. Maduro’s proposal at the conference came under scrutiny by scientists and activists who, waiting for details that shed light on where the government’s strategy is heading, stated that any plan must include actions that the president and his team are probably not willing to take.
At the COP27, Maduro was one of the leaders who supported an agreement on the financing of climatic losses and damages because his cabinet will shortly present a request for funding before the Green Climate Fund, a financial mechanism created in 2010 by the United Nations to assist developing countries in their adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. Experts believe that to have access to these resources, Venezuela should commit to the development of a greener economy and reduce the risks to which millions of Venezuelans are exposed due to torrential rains that left at least a hundred dead in 2022 alone.
Added to these new year challenges is the insistence on defending protected areas, where illegal construction does not stop, and indigenous peoples are cornered by extractivism.
The challenges of 2023 must be addressed in a country that lacks official figures and data on environmental matters.
In the Orinoco Mining Arc, the number of Venezuelans engaged in illegal extractivism is not officially known. In addition, no official body keeps track of the number of oil spills that affect the country every year. Likewise, there are no details of the environmental impact reports submitted to the Ministry of Ecosocialism every time a new construction is planned within a national park. The few operational weather stations do not collect enough data to predict rainfall and prevent disasters. Given this lack of information, planning solutions adjusted to reality is more complex.
To discuss the environmental challenges faced by Venezuela in 2023, Mongabay Latam spoke with activists, environmentalists, and scientists who are committed to documenting and denouncing the situation in the country.
1. A real commitment to protecting the Venezuelan Amazon
Nicolás Maduro returned to the COP after eight years of absence, a period in which he remained fenced off and away from international summits amid questions to his government over that violation of human rights; sanctions by the United States, the European Union and Canada, and even a reward of 15 million US dollars for his capture. This time, his speech was focused on blaming the denialist elites for ignoring climate change and foisting on them its progress over 30 years. He also cited how former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and Cuban Fidel Castro warned about the degradation of the planet while advocating the approval of the creation of a fund for climatic losses and damages. This is a financial mechanism that gives developing countries access to economic resources in compensation for damages related to the global phenomenon.
This interest goes hand in hand with the projects that his government will present to the Green Climate Fund, created in 2016 through the Paris Agreement with the aim of financing initiatives against climate change in developing countries. These projects will be overseen by a presidential commission that Maduro created at the end of November 2022.
Before being able to benefit from any climate fund, experts point out that Maduro should compromise to guarantee that the country opts for sustainability and avoids a raise in methane emissions which, together with carbon dioxide, is the main responsible for the greenhouse effect (World Bank estimates stood at 119,240 for 2019, but the recent reactivation of the industry must have increased the figure). Even though the Global Methane Agreement announced in 2021, during the COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, the promise to reduce these emissions by 30% by 2030 with the signing of more than a hundred countries, the Venezuelan State has yet to sign. For the sociologist and member of the Observatory on Political Ecology, Emiliano Terán Mantovani, Venezuela “could, should and would see it convenient to” take a turn in this direction and bet on a diversification of the economy.
Emiliano Terán affirmed that “we can lead an economic recovery that does not direct, once again, investments exclusively towards extractive oil and mining interests,” and pointed out that the government must reassess the country’s potential for agriculture and tourism.
The lack of information on the effects of extractivist activities seems to demonstrate the lack of interest on behalf of the Maduro government in protecting the environment. The Venezuelan non-profit organization Clima21 published an investigation that documented the occurrence of 199 oil spills from 2016 to 2021, a time in which there was hardly any official information on each event. The report points to “growing misinformation” on the subject and the suspicion that “the frequency of these accidents seems to continue to increase in recent years (…) This situation indicates that the Venezuelan State is ignoring its obligations derived from the international framework of human rights, as well as domestic laws and international agreements and commitments regarding environmental management and conservation,” the document stated.
At COP27, Maduro also promised to lead, together with Colombian President Gustavo Petro, an initiative to save the Amazon. But neither of them revealed or hinted at the details of the strategies that they will follow to implement this idea. Experts pointed out that the first thing that must change, at least in Venezuela, is the approach to the loss of tropical forests.
According to Alejandro Álvarez, biologist, environmentalist and director of the Venezuelan non-profit organization Clima21 dedicated to the defense of environmental human rights, we first need to understand deforestation in the Amazon as an issue that transcends the domestic sphere to become global. “We have to stop thinking that this is a problem in southern Venezuela. An effort must be made, among different groups of people, to communicate the worth of this forest for people’s survival (…) Losing the forest will be an extraordinarily serious burden for everyone”, he stressed.
In August 2022, the Clima21 report “Vanishing Forests: Deforestation in Venezuela 2016-2021” revealed that Venezuela is the country with the highest variation of natural forest loss with respect to previous years. The figure of almost 49,000 hectares deforested every year in the last five years is not encouraging. Statistics from Global Forest Watch revealed that, between 2002 and 2021, Venezuela lost 556,000 hectares of primary humid forest, equivalent to 26% of all tree cover lost in the same period. However, in terms of the extent of deforested areas, the average in Venezuela is still below other countries in the Amazon basin.
Álvarez emphasized the need to align the country’s environmental policy with current times. “There is a kind of simulation of environmental policy and the political factors in the opposition do not have one either; all they have is plans that focus on development, much like in the eighties, as if nothing had happened, as if climate change was not the greatest threat on Earth”, he stated.
For biologist Vilisa Morón, president of the Venezuelan Ecology Society, any agreement on the Venezuelan Amazon must include three determined actions: first, the elimination of mining in all national parks. Second, the demobilization of organized criminal groups and the guerrilla, which today control the territories where gold is exploited under the watchful eye of the military and violate the rights of indigenous peoples. And third, investment in monitoring and control systems over this vast territory, an action that must go hand in hand with the optimization of university research centers.
2. Alternatives to mining
The advance of the extractive companies of the Orinoco Mining Arc, in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolívar, heralds more devastation and contamination in the coming years, despite the repeated denunciation by non-governmental organizations, international institutions and the media. During the last quarter of 2022, the response of the Nicolás Maduro government was the militarization of the area and even incursions into national parks in the Venezuelan Amazon such as Canaima, also in the state of Bolívar, and Yapacana, in Amazonas, where the confiscation of weapons, detention of miners and the destruction of vessels and equipment used for extraction were announced. There is no public information that allows assessing the success of these military strategies to contain illegal mining.
The exact area of vegetation cover that illegal mining has devastated in the country remains unknown, but the report “Vanishing Forests: Deforestation in Venezuela 2016-2021” by Clima21 detailed that “two of the five states that concentrate 57% of nationwide deforestation (Bolívar and Amazonas) are also severely affected by gold mining”. Thousands of Venezuelans work in this industry, under the control of armed criminal groups and Colombian guerrillas or FARC dissidents, which annually produces some 35 tons of precious metal. Only 30% of the production goes to the State coffers, according to estimates by the international organization Transparency Venezuela, dedicated to investigating global corruption.
The true effects of these actions will be seen in the course of 2023. For this reason, for activists and indigenous peoples, the solutions to counteract the rush for gold, coltan and other minerals, and save lives, must come from the citizens rather than a State that has ignored the situation for years.
3. The protection of indigenous peoples
For Eligio DaCosta, a Baniva and general coordinator of the Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Amazonas (ORPIA), the arrival of legal mining in the state of Amazonas —where the activity has been banned by decree since 1989— is getting closer. In this area, Mongabay Latam documented how the mining activity in the Yapacana park is connected to the illegal economy of the department of Guainía in Colombia and the environmental disaster that it entails in the midst of absolute abandonment by the institutions of both countries.
“We are having a glimpse at the Mining Arc, and we are preparing to resist this situation because the eye of the State is coming towards us, this is a strategic territory,” said the person who in previous years denounced the opening of a government office of mining and the existence of a billboard promoting a mining supplies company in the state. The action of the communities managed to stop both initiatives. But the threat continues, DaCosta warned.
The Baniva leader brought to the Indigenous Chapter of the Congress of the New Times organized by the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, the idea of accelerating the demarcation of territory that has been pending since 1999, through the declaration of collective lands in the areas inhabited by the different ethnic groups.
“Our priority is two of the territories: the territory of the Uwottüja ancestral people in the Sipapo basin and the Yabarana territory in the Manapiare municipality. And from there we move to all the other towns (…) This will help us minimize mining because the towns will agree to protect their lands and peace will prevail. The destruction of the territory is also done by our own people,” DaCosta clarified, convinced that the document would allow the expulsion of the armed groups that operate in the area.
The other line of work of ORPIA is the indigenous economy, which contemplates the promotion of ancestral jobs that do not destroy nature, from the planting of conucos —small plots of land dedicated to cultivation— and the trade of their products to handicrafts.
According to Alejandro Álvarez, these initiatives need the support of international funds. “Many indigenous groups are turning to mining because of poverty, which pushes them to the only option to make money,” he stressed.
The biologist and environmentalist highlighted that his organization is working, together with the Observatory for the Defense of Life (Odevida), to develop a protection mechanism for people who live under threat in their own territory, especially after the emergence of armed groups linked to drug trafficking in Amazonas, who would be the alleged perpetrators of the murder of the coordinator of the Uwottüja Territorial Guardians, Virgilio Trujillo, in June 2022.
4. Risk mitigation
Two tragedies took place in the central Venezuelan state of Aragua in less than a couple of weeks. In Las Tejerías, heavy rains left more than 60 people dead and 1,400 families affected, according to the promotion and aid organization of the Catholic Church, Cáritas Venezuela. Also, a landslide in the El Castaño neighborhood killed four people and destroyed fifty homes. In the Venezuelan Andes, to the west of the country, the overflowing of rivers and ravines hit several towns in the states of Mérida and Táchira, a situation that replicated to the north, affecting the states of Lara and Falcón. The rains also tore down bridges along the coast. All these events exposed the vulnerability of the population to the torrential landslides that hit Venezuela in 2022. Risk management is a pending issue for 2023. The only thing that will prevent more deaths and losses will be prevention.
A first step in this direction was taken by the Venezuelan government last December 2022 with the creation of the “Hugo Chávez” Multidimensional Battle Room, which has the generation of early warnings in terms of risk management as one of its objectives. But the effectiveness of this instance will depend on the operation of the instruments that help forecast extraordinary events and prevent catastrophes.
According to the engineer and researcher at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics of the Central University of Venezuela, José Luis López, strengthening the network of hydrometeorological measurements is essential. According to the information available online, the expert estimates that the operation of the stations that collect this data has fallen by 86% in the last 15 years. That is why he considers their recovery crucial, especially those that are in priority areas most affected by rainfall, as well as information on how many remain active, their location and characteristics.
“The stations must provide telemetric data, which means that they should be able to make measurements in real-time rather than every 24 hours, as some of them operate today. This is the only way they can issue a warning, ”he stressed. López insisted that the critical rainfall thresholds for each basin must be determined because these values are the inputs for the design of preparation or evacuation warnings.
According to the hydraulic engineer, it is also necessary to act directly in the affected areas. In Las Tejerías, for example, he recommended the design and construction of stream channelization and dams. Everything must be accompanied by a campaign in the media and other channels to educate the population about the risk and prevent the construction of houses on the banks of rivers and streams.
5. In defense of protected natural areas
The threat of illegal construction in protected natural areas has increased in the last five years, and in 2022 all eyes were on the tepuis of Canaima, in the southern state of Bolívar, where the eccentric birthday celebration of businessman Rafael Oliveros, linked to the ruling party, took place. The eyes were also on the beaches of Mochima, in the northeast; in the Sierra Nevada mountains, in the Andean state of Mérida, and Cerro María Lionza, in the center west of the country. Not even the declaration of national park or natural monument has prevented the approval of plans in these spaces under the custody of the State, to detriment of the regulations for their preservation.
This constant violation of the regulations is the reflection of a lost institutionality. For this reason, the biologist Vilisa Morón insisted on the need to recover it. “Without that, action is limited, both by the officials in charge and the public,” she stressed.
The oceanographer José Ramón Delgado, an expert in coastal zone management and director of the Caribe Sur Foundation, a Venezuelan organization focused on contributing to the conservation and dissemination of the natural and cultural heritage of the region, agrees with this perception. Delgado maintains that the effects on the Mochima National Park, where a small hotel was erected on an island where construction is prohibited, and the plans for several hospitality developments on Isla La Tortuga, have the same origin: “The breach of the law and the idea of wanting to adopt models that are not consistent with the Venezuelan ecological reality”.
The other challenge falls, according to Morón, on citizen participation: a kind of alliance between academia, business, non-governmental organizations and civil society that becomes familiar with environmental laws and the importance of a “natural capital” that is capable of mitigating climate change, protect watersheds, and stabilize and provide fertility to the soil.
“The biggest challenge for 2023 is to continue the work of environmental activism by monitoring, alerting and denouncing the moves of those who only want to make business regardless of whether the project is appropriate, timely, sustainable and, above all, legally viable and respectful of the environment and the law”, Delgado said. All these actions must be undertaken by organized civil society under a difficult economic outlook and an academia that barely has the financial and human resources to sustain itself.
Translated by José Rafael Medina
