Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: National Park Restricts Vehicles

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CARACAS, May 4 2009 (IPS) - Access of all-terrain four-wheel-drive vehicles is being limited in the Cainama National Park, in southeastern Venezuela, bordering Brazil and part of the Guiana massif. The restrictions were enacted because “by late 2008 hundreds of those vehicles had devastated the park, traveling beyond the authorized roads, gauging out the vegetation, by engaging in 'fangueo' (mud driving) and 'rustiqueo' (competitions in speed and maneuvering),” César Cario, regional director of the National Parks Institute, told Tierramérica.

The courts are considering a ban on all-terrain trucks in the east of the 30,000-square-kilometer park, which in 1994 was declared a natural Heritage of Humanity Site by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).