SOSOrinoco Newsletter #8
Flight of Venezuelan Gold & Loss of National Sovereignty

Yapacana National Park (Amazonas, Venezuela) under serious ecocidal threat | Yapacana has the largest levels of destruction among Venezuela's 44 national parks | Mining in Yapacana linked to Colombian drug trafficking | Turkey and UAE import large quantities of Venezuelan gold |
NEW StoryMap: Canaima, A World Heritage Site in Danger

• Yapacana National Park (Amazonas, Venezuela) under serious ecocidal threat: Thanks to cooperation with Radiant Earth Foundation, SOSOrinoco got access to and analysis of recent (2018) open data from the European Union Sentinel 2 satellites and access and analysis of high resolution images of Yapacana National Park, courtesy of satellite image ©2018 DigitalGlobe, a Maxar company, that reveal the accelerated pace of devastation and deforestation due to illegal mining inside the park.  See SOSOrinoco featured in Radiant Earth Foundation Annual Report 
• SOSOrinoco publishes English version of StoryMap: Canaima, World Heritage Site in Danger
• SOSOrinoco on social media: More than 550 followers on Instagram. In December 2018 we reached 1.6 million impressions on Twitter with 7300 followers: See the tweet that was most seen 

• Mining in Yapacana linked to Colombian drug trafficking A recent in-depth study called "Looted Amazon" by  RAISG reveals that Yapacana National Park has the largest and most uncontrolled illegal mining area in all of Orinoquia-Amazonia.  
• Mining destruction inside Yapacana NP feeds the Colombian economy, and serves as the principal financial sustenance for the ELN Colombian guerrilla movement.  Mining in Venezuela is inextricably linked to drug trafficking and cocaine that is processed in Colombia Read report by Insight Crime  
• US Dept. of Treasury looks into Turkey's import of $900 million of gold from Venezuela Read full article  and watch BBC short video on the Venezuelan and Turkish "gold diplomacy"
• UAE's Noor Capital says it bought 3 tonnes of Venezuelan gold in January Read full article
• Scroll down to see our "clic & swipe" images that show the devastation over 10 years inside Canaima National Park