Assault on Venezuela's Protected Areas
7/6/97
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Headline: Assault on Venezuela's Protected Areas
Source: Environment News Service
Date: 7/6/97
Copyright c 1997 ENS, Inc.
CARACAS, Venezuela, July 6, 1997 (ENS) - Former Minister for the
Environment, Enrique Colmenares Finol, yesterday labelled the Caldera
administration the "Garimpeiro cabinet of the Americas" in an
unprecedented attack on government plans to turn 1,200 million hectares of
the Imataca Forest Reserve over to mining concessions. Garimpeiro is a
term that refers to miners who move in illegally to exploit mineral
resources.
Colmenares Finol claims the government wants to make Imataca into a
showpiece for the new "Apertura Minera" Mines Opening - by getting public
opinion behind the awarding of concessions to mining companies.
Sources close to the Ministry of the Environment and Non-Renewable
Resources (MARNR) say the new plan for Imataca is nothing compared to the
new long-awaited Mining Law. The Mining Law promises to open up even more
of Venezuelas protected areas, superseding previous legislation. Combined
with the present Apertura Petrolera, it seems Rafael Calderas government
has bent under the pressure from the mining and energy lobbies to let them
solve the country's economic crisis.
Rafael Calderas' government has sought to persuade the public that there
are valuable revenues to be gained from the mining sector, despite
evidence that as little as 5 tonnes of gold of the 40 extracted from
Venezuela's gold-rich Bolvar State was actually taxed last year.
According to Colmenares Finol, the new Imataca Management Plan sets a
grave precedent. "If Parliament fails to intervene, every cabinet from now
on will be able to do what it likes with protected areas."
The ex-Minister for the Environment also criticised the government for
passing the new Management Plan through the back door, effectively
bypassing Congress. He claimed the government had shown its true colours
by not permitting any agricultural development in the new plan, while
allowing damaging artesanal and large-scale mining to continue.
The debate over the 3.2 million hectare Imataca Forest Reserve in
southeastern Venezuela has heated up since the President of the Chamber of
Deputies' Environmental Commission, C,sar P,rez Vivas, declared last week
that Congress would be forced to take the case to the Supreme Court if the
government refused to reverse its decision.
On Monday, the important Venezuelan nongovernmental organization, Fudena,
declared its opposition to the new plan, stating it contravened the
Washington Convention of 1941 on Biodiversity which Venezuela signed. Only
Congress can alter the status of protected areas such as the Imataca
Forest Reserve.
Fudena also claims the Environment Laws article 3 paragraph 8 and the
Territorial Management Law on public consultation have been violated,
since the Venezuelan cabinet passed the management plan a full two weeks
before the deadline for public consultation had expired.
"The most worrying aspect of Imataca is that it seems to provide another
example of how this government seeks short-term means to rescue the
country from its present economic crisis with no thought for the future.
You have to ask: What will be left of Venezuela to guarantee its existence
tomorrow?" Fudena said in a statement.
Seventeen leaders of the Pemon indians of Bolvar and Delta Amacuro States
from Venezuelas southeast, representing 14,000 people, are in Caracas this
week to lobby the government on the issue of the plan to lay powerlines
through their ancestral lands and Canaima National Park World Heritage
Site. The Pemon have also declared their opposition to the new Management
Plan for Imataca.
"Mining in Imataca means our death, thats why were against it. We're
fighting miners for access to clean water and fishing sites," stated
Alexis Romero, director of Indigenous Participation in the Gran Sabana
municipality of Bolvar State.
The Pemon and hundreds of environmentalists and public figures will be at
the demonstration against the new Management Plan for Imataca at the
Ministry of Environment and Non-Renewable Resources (MARNR) tomorrow.