***********************************************
WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Deforestation
Out of Control in Venezuela
***********************************************
Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
October
18, 1995
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE
Following
is a report on out of control deforestation in Venezuala
posted
in the list.forest list server. The
piece does a good job
of
detailing the last decade's dramatic increase in logging, and
simultaneous
deterioration in people's living conditions.
Threats
to the
Venezuelan Amazon as the next logging frontier are
highlighted.
g.b.
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/**
list.forest: 101.0 **/
**
Topic: DEFORESTATION OUT OF CONTROL IN VENEZUELA (fwd) **
**
Written 12:12 PM Oct 11, 1995 by
Jarmo.Saarikko@METLA.FI in
cdp:list.forest
**
From:
"Jarmo Saarikko (METLA)" <Jarmo.Saarikko@METLA.FI>
Subject: DEFORESTATION OUT OF CONTROL IN
VENEZUELA (fwd)
Date:
Tue, 10 Oct 95 08:08:50 EST
From:
CENTENO . JULIO CESAR <jcenteno@ciens.ula.ve>
To:
Multiple recipients of list <biodiv-l@ftpt.br>
Subject:
DEFORESTATION OUT OF CONTROL IN VENEZUELA
------------------------------------------------------------------
DEFORESTATION
OUT OF CONTROL IN VENEZUELA
According
to FAO, during the decade of the 80s Venezuelan forests
disappeared
at the rate of 1600 hectares a day
JULIO
CESAR CENTENO
------------------------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND
Despite
its wealth in natural resources, Venezuela is going
through
one of its most dramatic historical junctures, reflected
in its
financial and political instability, and in the growing
impoverishment
of its population. This process has become
particularly
obvious since 1982, when a steep devaluation of the
currency
was unleashed. The inequalities in the distribution of
the
costs and benefits of national development have become more
acute.
Over the last 15 years, the proportion of the population
living
in extreme poverty increased from 25 percent to nearly 50
percent.
Average real income felled by 45 percent. The value of
the
bolivar, the national currency, dropped by a factor of 40,
from 24
cent of a dollar in 1982 to only 0.6 cents of a dollar
today.
Inflation
in 1994 peaked at 71 percent, one of the highest in
Latin
America, while the external debt reached unprecedented
levels,
equivalent to 70 percent of the gross national product.
Over
the past 20 years, Venezuela has paid over 60 billion dollars
in the
service of the external debt, which net value has in turn
increased
during the same time to 39 billion dollars. It drains 20
to 30
percent of the income received from all exports each year.
The
external debt is one of the most significant obstacle to
national
development. It is distributed between the central
government
(29 billion), decentralized government enterprises (6
billion)
and the private sector (4 billion).
DEFORESTATION
The
impact of the economic and political instability on the
country
and its population has been magnified by the erosion of
the
country's natural resource base. According to the United
Nations'
Food and Agricultural Organization, between 1981 and 1990
the
average annual deforestation in Venezuela increased to more
than
double the level registered in the 1970s, reaching an average
of 600
thousand hectares a year, the equivalent to 1600 hectares
each
day during the whole decade. Six million hectares of forests
were
lost between 1981 and 1990, an area larger than Costa Rica,
50%
larger than Switzerland, and nearly as large as Ireland. The
average
rate of deforestation (1.2% a year) during the 80s was
twice
as high as that of Brazil, three times that of Peru, and
almost
double the average for all tropical countries in South
America
taken together.
About
90% of the population lives in the half of the country north
of the
Orinoco River. About 60 percent of the
original forest
cover
on this half of the country has already been lost. Remaining
forests
cover now only one fifth of the surface north of the
Orinoco,
fractioned into severely degraded lots. As a consequence,
most of
the population must now endure a persistent and growing
shortage
of water, for domestic consumption, the irrigation of
agricultural
land, or the production of electricity. This shortage
is
aggravated by the deterioration of the water distribution
networks.
Other
legacies of the pronounced deforestation which has taken
place north
of the Orinoco river include the irreversible
destruction
of a valuable and significant part of the country's
biological
heritage, increases in both the intensity and severity
of
droughts and floods, and the growing scarcity of a wide variety
of
products traditionally supplied by forests, such as firewood,
medicines,
food and construction materials.
DEFORESTATION
AND THE EXPANSION OF AGRICULTURE
Deforestation
in Venezuela is due primarily to the expansion of
the
agricultural frontier. Almost three quarters of all forest
loss
registered during the 1980s can be directly related to the
expansion
of agriculture. Most of the original forests in the
states
of Apure, Aragua, Carabobo, Cojedes, Miranda, Lara, Falcon,
Tachira,
Merida and Zulia disappeared through this process. Even
areas
formally delimited as permanent forests, such as parts of
protected
areas, or areas set aside for the production of
industrial
timber, have been destroyed. Nothing is left of the
forest
reserve of Turen, which originally covered 116.000
hectares.
Only small fractions remain of the forest reserves of
Ticoporo,
Caparo, San Camilo or Rio Tocuyo. What remains is
severely
degrades, for the most part invaded for the practice of
survival
agriculture, or by agroindustries and cattle ranchers.
Limited
are the possibilities of survival by the end of the
century
for many of these forest relics.
In the
state of Barinas, where some of the remaining rain forests
of the
northern half of the country are located, mercenaries of
the
land trade and distribute parcels covered by forests with
absolute
impunity. These parcels are meant for conversion to
agriculture,
often located inside forest reserves, a national
patrimony.
The front line "invaders", mostly landless peasants,
are
frequently manipulated to trespass public land into private
ownership.
Affected forests are first creamed of their most
valuable
timbers. They are then burned. After a few years of
agricultural
activity, no matter how superficial or precarious it
may be,
the property of the land is transferred to the invading
peasants
by application of the "agrarian reform" law. The land is
then
sold, at meager or symbolic prices, to the landholders,
politicians,
cattle ranchers or local caudillos, who incited and
supported
the original invasions.
THE
EXTRACTION OF COMMERCIAL TIMBER
About
20 per cent of the deforestation registered during the 80s
is
associated directly or indirectly to timber extraction.
Although
only a few trees are harvested per hectare, up to a third
of the
biomass is either destroyed or severely damaged during
logging. Logging companies are allowed to virtually
eliminate the
full
growing stock above the established minimum cutting
diameters,
which have in turn been arbitrarily established based
on
assumed growing rates. The remaining forest, creamed of the
most
valuable species and severely damaged, becomes open ground
for its
final conversion to agriculture. This conversion process
seems,
at this stage, particularly competitive and convenient,
specially
in light of the delicate dependency of the country on
imported
food, and the explosive combination of the concentration
of land
ownership with rampant poverty and the excessive pressure
of the
foreign debt on the limited economic resources available.
Timber
extraction has thus become the first phase of a process
which
eventually leads to the clearing of the forest.
Logging
concentrate on the extraction of a handful of highly
valuable
species, in what may often be considered salvage
operations
prior to forest clearings. This is indirectly but
firmly
encouraged by the government, through the application of
insignificant
stumpage prices. Despite steep increases of the
stumpage
value during 1993 and 1994, precious timbers are at
present
valued at between three and five dollars the cubic meter
in the
form of extracted logs, while their commercial value ranges
from
140 to 260 dollar the cubic meter in the internal market. The
most
valuable timbers produce significantly higher profits, a
powerful
disincentive to the extraction of lesser known species,
or to
efforts in opening up markets for them.
Sustainable
management has been officially interpreted as
equivalent
to sustainable yield. Logging companies are therefore
allowed
to include in the calculations of future yields the
production
expected from plantations of monocultures established
within
the boundaries of their concessions. They are also allowed
to
replace the production originally associated to an exhausted
precious
timber, with a new species or group of species of
lesser
comercial value. There is virtually no incentive for the
sustainable
management of the ecosystems, or for a fair
possibility
that the original production potential of the most
valuable
timbers will be maintained.
Ironically,
stumpage volume and prices are quantified based on a
fictitious
unit of measurement called the official cubic meter,
equivalent
to about two thirds of a real cubic meter in the form
of
logs. This is a special form of subsidy, which has cost the
country
about 75 million dollars in uncollected taxes over the
last 10
years alone. Since a third of the extracted timber is
considered
to lack any value, the enormous levels of waste
associated
to the timber industry end up as additional
externalities
absorbed by all members of society.
THE
THREAT TO THE VENEZUELAN AMAZON
The new
scenario for deforestation in Venezuela is now the state
of
Bolivar, in the venezuelan Guayana, a natural extension of the
Amazon.
The state of Bolivar is 24 million hectares in size, as
large
as the United Kingdom. It is covered by
natural tropical
forests
over 70 percent of its surface. Since 1987, nearly three
million
hectares of natural and pristine forests have been leased
to
timber concessionaires there. The new national development plan
(1996-1999),
recently presented to the country by the Bureau for
Coordination
and Planning of the Presidency [CORDIPLAN], proposes
to
expand timber concessions to nearly 12 million hectares. All
new
concessions would be located in the state of Bolivar, which
forests
are known as much for their particularly wealth in
biodiversity,
as for their unique fragility. However, past
experience
in the country indicates that sustainable forest
management
for the production of industrial timber has been, for
the
most part, more of a myth than a reality. Natural forests set
aside
for the production of timber have been normally exploited as
if they
were mines, causing extensive and unsustainable damage to
the
resource base. In the state of Bolivar, the threat associated
to
timber extraction is complemented by the devastating impact
of
uncontrolled alluvial gold mining in the same areas.
COVER-UP
AND TOOLS FOR DEFORESTATION
The
natural resources of the country are being plundered and
destroyed
unescrupulously for short term profit, with the
complicity
of national and local authorities. The agrarian reform,
often
used as an excuse to cover up for this destruction, is a
farce
hidden behind the devastation of the national forest
heritage. Despite 30 year of "agrarian
reform", Venezuela
is one
of countries in Latin American with the highest
concentration
of land in a handful of privileged landholders.
According
to the agricultural census of 1988, only six percent
(6%) of
the landholders owned seventy percent (70%) of the
agricultural
land. While seventy-three percent (73%) of the
landholders
had to share only four percent (4%) of the land.
The
landless, invading peasant, often used as an instrument of
destruction
in the deforestation process, is also the victim of
the
unbearable levels of poverty affecting the majority of the
population,
specially in rural areas. While, according to the
World
Bank, Venezuela imports half the food it consumes. The
tendency
is therefore for even further large scale losses of the
forest
heritage, unless radical political, social and economic
changes
are implemented.
Deforestation
in Venezuela has become a threat to the ecological
stability
of the country, and therefore to sustainable economic
and
social progress. It could thus be considered a crime against
our
children and their descendants.
September
1995
________________________________
JULIO
CESAR CENTENO
PO BOX
750
MERIDA
- VENEZUELA
TEL -
FAX : 074-714576
:
jcenteno@ciens.ula.ve
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