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These very high resolution satellite images (in which the blue roofs of the miners houses can be detected) reveal the increase in illegal mining in the Upper Orinoco-Casiquiare Biosphere Reserve. This is the main threat to the survival of the indigenous peoples and is now being driven by an invasion of Colombian guerrillas and Brazilian garimpeiros who are promoting mining, and in this way introducing violence and diseases. Just in this last year, an estimated 100 Yanomami died in a Measles epidemic.
The UOCBR is the largest protected area of Venezuela and the 6th largest in all of Amazonia, with more than 8 millones hectares in extension, bordering Brazil.
The UOCBR houses an invaluable human heritage, represented by the Yanomami and Ye ́kwana indigenous peoples, whose ancestral lands are legally protected in this biospher reserve.
83% of all the Venezuelan Yanomami live in the UOCBR, in approximately 380 communities or shaponos. The estimated population of the Venezuelan Yanomami population is about 13000 inhabitants.
The Ye ́kwana have 23 communities within the UOCBR, with an estimated 2700 inhabitants.
Within the Venezuelan government, it is the Bolivarian Armed Forces that is responsible for this gross negligence and indolence, because, on the one hand, they are the only ones with the mision and capabilities to dislodge or impede miners and guerrillas, and on the other, they are the only ones with the logistical capacity to mobilize much needed medical and sanitary assistance by air or water, for the indigenous people.
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