In the initial SOS Orinoco report, published in July of 2918,
[1] describing mining activity inside Canaima National Park (CNP), a World Heritage Site (WHS) recognized by UNESCO, the authors characterized and explained this phenomenon as being a consequence of the current Venezuelan government’s political strategy of promoting mining activity amidst an economic, social and political collapse that the regime itself has created and promoted. This document is an update of that first report, where the authors endeavored to describe what has happened in CNP and what has been the institutional response from UNESCO, IUCN and the Venezuelan government itself. This new version gives special attention to the situation of the Pemón indigenous people and demonstrates that the current situation (February of 2020) of the mining phenomenon in the CNP/WHS continues expanding rather than diminishing.
In 2018, SOS Orinoco established contact with IUCN and UNESCO and sent the report to both organizations, but received no direct response. Notwithstanding, the two organizations forwarded the document to the Venezuelan authorities, requesting a formal reply, something that is yet to materialize. Nonetheless, as a consequence of the denunciations, the Maduro regime has implemented a series of actions, some of which are most unfortunate.
This update of the report demonstrates a periodization of the mining activity that has been documented for CNP up until 2019, and characterizes the changes that have taken place in the inventory of mines since the 2018 report. There has been an intensification of mining activity during the past 19 months, with a total increase of 20 hectares within CNP, going from 501 to 521 hectares. The report has also determined the presence of other mines that had not been detected by the previous report, while not counting the number of mining rafts currently operating on the rivers, which are more difficult to detect, and exceed 20 units, according to local sources.
This report presents a new and preliminary analysis of the environmental impact of the mining activity in CNP, taking into account present mining activity in CNP, as well as in adjacent areas, and its impact on the Kukenán and Caroní river basins, considering the ecological, biodiversity, scenic, socioeconomic and institutional contexts. It was determined that 70% of the course of the Caroní River may be at risk of contamination resulting from the use of mercury in the gold mining operations. Also, an evaluation was made of the scope of this contamination by following the diagnostic analysis of the vulnerability of the scenic landscape proposed by Markham and Sangermano (2018), taking into account the area of the mining activity adjacent to the park, consisting of 7,680 hectares in 2018. The cost distance analysis determined that mining activity outside CNP is creating a potential vulnerability for 22,481 hectares inside CNP, of which 7,419 show “high vulnerability” to mining activity, while 8,935 show “mid vulnerability,” and 6,127 are potentially subject to “low vulnerability.”
Furthermore, this report presents an account and an explicative analysis of the conflictive situation between the Pemón people, the Venezuelan State and criminal groups, which have been vying for control of the territory and the mining activity in CNP and its vicinity from July of 2018 until February of 2020. It also highlights how the Pemón indigenous movement and the Pemón people’s control over their own ancestral territory have been severely weakened; as well as the serious human and indigenous rights violations committed against the inhabitants of CNP and its surroundings. Finally, the report presents other impacts regarding the CNP/WHS and the Pemón people, which were detected in the field and rendered in eyewitness testimonies, and which are closely related to the events that occurred during the past year and a half, as well as the exacerbation of the complex humanitarian situation that Venezuela is experiencing, and which had not been detected in July of 2018.
