SOSOrinoco Newsletter #5: Illegal mining inside Canaima National Park
Canaima National Park was declared a World Natural Heritage Site in June 1994, but in spite of this, a boom in gold mining activity has exploded within the park, caused by a strategic policy of the current Venezuelan government that promotes mining activities in a vast 11,000 km2 area that encompasses all mining categories. This policy has been named the Arco Minero del Orinoco (Orinoco Mining Arc). UNESCO’s silence regarding the destruction of this World Heritage Site – without doubt one of the most spectacular and valuable on the planet - is inexplicable.
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UNESCO could, at the very least, put Canaima on the World Heritage in Danger List, and pressure the government of Venezuela to control mining activity, stop its expansion and promote a sustainable economy in which tourism, once again, becomes a viable source of income for locals.
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Canaima is without doubt one of the most striking of World Natural Heritage Sites and should be preserved for all of humanity, not only Venezuelans. It is therefore the duty of, not only the Venezuelan State, but also the United Nations, through its specialized agency UNESCO, to preserve, guard and share its natural values and scenic beauty.
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IUCN is a technical and scientific advisor to UNESCO, that should submit criteria and information in order to monitor and detect potential threats to a World Natural Heritage Site, and should offer recommendations in order to revert the threats.
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Canaima is the ancentral territory of the Pemón indigenous people, who have managed to preserve their specific identity despite important changes that have taken place in their traditional way of life, which is why they are of authentic anthropological value.
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Article 127 of the Constitution of Venezuela establishes that “the State will protect the environment, biological diversity, genetic resources, ecological processes, national parks…” Mining within National Parks is strictly forbidden, as stated in the Legislation “CONVENTION ON NATURE PROTECTION AND WILDLIFE PRESERVATION IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE", approved by Venezuela in 1941, in which it is expressly indicated that “The existing riches within will not be exploited commercially”. Venezuela has also subscribed to the Convention on the Protection of the Cultural and Natural World Heritage that recognized Canaima as a Natural World Heritage Site and that establishes that due to its designation as a WHS, mining is unacceptable within the limits of the park.
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In the last year, SOS Orinoco has detected, with precision, 33 mining sites inside and on the borders of Canaima National Park. On this map, we plotted only 15 of them which are inside the boundaries of the World Heritage Site; see below videos of two mining sites.
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Video of satellite images of an illegal tourist lodge, illegal mining, and deforestation inside Canaima National Park
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Video of satellite images of illegal mining sites and illegal landing strips in Urimán, a large site within the park and images of illegal mining sites on the left bank of the Caroní River (on the border of the park)
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Not all the mining sites that are operating inside Canaima can be easily detected with satellite imagery. Many are small and others operate on floating rafts on the rivers, and are only visible with expensive high-resolution satellite images. Many more mining sites than what the ones detected by us are operating.
If you happen to know about an illegal mine in Canaima, please consider denouncing it by clicking on the button and writing to info@SOSOrinoco.org. Your information will be handled with complete CONFIDENTIALITY.
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On June 10, 2014, in a televised program, Minister of Tourism, Andrés Izarra, publicly denounced the presence of illegal mining sites on the Carrao and Caroní rivers, he mentioned the mines in Arekuma, Campo Carrao and Kavac, and asserted that “today, the main threat to the World Heritage Site is illegal mining, that is devastating the entire National Park”
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In 2015, the Ministry of the Environment (MINEA 2015) released a report that recognized the tremendous impact of mining inside the National Park and confirmed that it was uncontrolled and stretched over more than 200,000 hectares.
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Moreover, beyond Parque Nacional Canaima, we are on the doorstep of a total collapse of all of the Venezuelan conservation system that was developed over 80 years. In the words of ex senator, Alexander Luzardo, “The National Parks system is in danger due to illegal mining and legal mining, legalized by Decree 2248 (Arco Minero)…which, if executed as planned, will cause mercury and cyanide pollution of the Orinoco River, which in turn is considered transnational because the Caribbean Sea will be impacted, as well as fishing and agriculture”
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Gold Mining is causing severe problems for the ecosystems, biodiversity and social structure of the Pemon Indigenous people, who inhabit these territories.
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Summary of socio-environmental impacts
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The government defends itself saying that Canaima National Park is outside the limits of the so called Arco Minero del Orinoco – The Orinoco Mining Arc – but in reality the park is surrounded on its Northern and Southern limits by the zone that was included in the Mining Arc decree, so mining has spilled over into the interior of the World Heritage Site.
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The Orinoco Mining Arc decree, combined with the extreme economic crisis, has caused the current mining boom that has reached Canaima National Park, which today, is witnessing more mining activity than in the latter part of the XX Century. Previously, inhabitants of Canaima could make a living through tourism, but nowadays, tourism has completely disappeared and all the inhabitants have had to turn to mining in order to make a living.
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The environmental and social destruction caused by mining in Guayana and Venezuelan Amazonia cannot be detained and reverted unless there is fundamental political change and a return to democratic Rule of Law in Venezuela. The Pemon people are just victims of an insane mining boom promoted by the current government.
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Five fundamental actors drive mining activity in Canaima and its surroundings: politicians, military officers, non-indigenous miners, criminal gangs, and indigenous people.
- Politicians and government officials from the central and regional government, who are members of almost all the political parties but mainly the party in government (PSUV): They facilitate all the interlocking stages involved in the process of illegal mining and of course, they benefit from trafficking of the minerals. The generalized opinion is that, at best, a very low percentage of the gold production is reported and transferred to the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV)
- The military actors are members, mostly officers, of the Bolivarian Army and have, under their command, the troops of the Bolivarian National Guard. They provide, if necessary by using force, the cohesion of the mining logistics, such as mobilization of equipment, fuel, supplies, food by controlling routes, access points, thereby exercising territorial control.
- The criminal gangs, locally known as “sindicatos”, are in charge of the local control of each mine, resolving conflicts between miners, charging protection money (in gold). Fundamentally, these gangs have come to an understanding with the military sector in that they coordinate their activities with them or let them partake of the money collected.
- The non-indigenous miners are the ones who do the physical labor in the majority of the mining sites in the region, and within this group there are merchants who provide goods and services. They are the base of the pyramid.
- The indigenous people who dedicate themselves to mining, belong to the Pemon people who make up the majority of the inhabitants of Canaima National Park, and mostly mine within Pemon lands. Due to the extreme crisis in Venezuela – hyperinflation and lack of food – the Pemon have had to turn to mining in order to survive.
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Without doubt, the situation in Canaima is the resulting backlash of the institutional collapse of the Venezuelan government that has unleashed anarchy, impunity and violence. The situation here is a reflection of the abysmal political crisis that is rattling Venezuela.
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The year 2013 was key in the history of Canaima. That year marked the start of the peak in mining activity that spilled over into the National Park and was a consequence of the increase of gold mining activity by the criminal gangs known locally as “sindicatos”, outside the park, but that displaced many miners toward the interior of Canaima.
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