Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Documentary on Vast Wetlands

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CARACAS, Jul 18 2005 (IPS) - The documentary “Tierras de agua dulce” (Lands of Freshwater), about the vast Venezuelan wetlands of the plains along the Orinoco River, premiered July 9 “to show the potential we have and must take care of, as one of the 12 countries with greatest reserves of freshwater,” the film's directory, Ana Cristina Henríquez, told Tierramérica. The flatlands with the major rivers, and their nearly extinct independent forests and threatened by livestock and farming, “could contain underground twice the amount of water we see in the rivers and marshes on the surface,” said expert Pedro Figueroa.

The abundance of water over the plains “does not allow us to see the danger of water scarcity as deforestation advances throughout Venezuela, by hundreds of thousands of hectares a year,” warned agronomist Miguel Ortega.